On I Sold Gold, a first-person scatter of cynical asides, relationship demands, and childhood memories inform the lyrics of Aqueduct principal David Terry's frail, fractured, push-button pop songs. "I've lived my life so well/ But you put me through hell," he says in "The Unspeakable", and a piano's droopy chording is joined by random electronic noise and some skeletal live drumming.
It's like he's walking through Guitar Center in Seattle, and all around him the demo programs and drum machines triggered by curious customers form into raggedy and rudimentary, but ultimately pretty clever little soundtracks of his life. In the store's backroom, a pimply teenage kid pecks eagerly at his first Hamer, and that scratchy whine becomes the intro to "The Suggestion Box". Terry harmonizes with himself to give the arguing words a plaintive edge.
"Hardcore Days & Softcore Nights" doesn't live up lyrically to its like-gold title. But the track was addictive enough for those track jacket-lovin' kids on "The O.C.", and its squelchy bump sounds here like Grandaddy covering Archers of Loaf. "Heart Design" is I Sold Gold's seven-layer cake of Casiotone twitter; "Laundry Baskets" matches that fuzz to rowdy guitars; and the wistful, faux theremin instrumental "Gameover: Thanks for Playing" is like closing time at the roller rink. Gold is Aqueduct's first full-length for Barsuk, and it fits snugly on a roster rife with groups (Long Winters, Rilo Kiley) that crosshatch indie rock with outside influences and, most significantly, an attention to melody. Terry turns in "Frantic (Roman Polanski Version)", and its upbeat, simplistic rush is a template for Pacific Northwest indie. But "Five Star Day", "Unspeakable", and "Growing Up With GNR" are smarter, mostly because of prominent piano melodies that connect them to the swaying AM pop of a past era.
Okay, Terry is self-involved, neurotic, and noncommittal-- all traits common to love connections in the 21st century. And those feelings contribute to I Sold Gold's occasional detachment, like Terry's singing through a cell phone as he walks through that noisy Guitar Center. But its flimsiness usually finds a way to sound purposeful, and that makes Aqueduct's personal, cerebral pop worth coming back to.
