For all the ballyhoo surrounding this New Orleans trio's shout-out band name, there's not so much R.E.M. mimicry on Punches as major label muscle-flexing. In other words, the album sounds like money, not Green. After a slightly more rough and tumble indie debut, World Leader Pretend pull out all the stops here, making for vastly layered leviathans that aim even higher than the band's name hints-- even the filler tracks enjoy symphonic treatment. Nearly an hour of exhausting frippery and fanfare later, Punches still boasts its share of hooks and ideas, though sounds impersonal in its grandiosity.
Much of this overwhelming effect stems from frontman Keith Ferguson's hammed-up vocals, an amalgamation of every headlining Live 8 artist with, go figure, a hint of Michael Stipe. Following suit, the band spans the breadth of the symphony-rock spectrum. "The Masses" and "A Horse of a Different" spin U2 histrionics with hard-edged guitars á la Muse. Creaky pianos usher in the verse, Ferguson croons a crooked minor melody and then bam!-- we're hit with everything from the Stratocaster to the Stradivarius on an all-or-nothing chorus. Funny as they sound on paper, the songs surprisingly stick, although some subtlety wouldn't hurt. The title track's slick mellotron and sneering guitars could pass as the Walkmen or Clinic if not for the instrumental maelstrom crowding every beat Ferguson's not singing on. Likewise, "Tit for Tat" attempts a bustling Sufjan arrangement that sounds goofy enough with sleigh bells and xylophone, let alone its relapse into a syrupy Britpop-era chorus.
While noting how Punches misfires on its promise is a bit of a no-brainer, the album's technocratic bent makes for a paper tiger. Similar to Portland's Swords, World Leader Pretend pack a disproportionately small punch for their expansive sound, their hodgepodge of recognizable influences only artificially bolstering the songs' effectiveness. To their credit, the music trounces many contemporary bands' efforts to make entire albums from "Boys Don't Cry". Ferguson's songwriting is hyperactive, warding off a repetition of ideas, but there's still a lot of work to be done, and until the trio can muster some pizzazz of their own, they'll remain in the shadow of their touchstones-- a shadow they haven't exactly shied away from.
