The Aquarium's self-titled debut starts with an entrancing one-two punch. Opener "Maxxo Sesh" weaves Jason Hutto's rippling keyboards and Laura Harris's bouncing drums into a proggy web. Having drifted out to sea, the duo lay back and stare at the sun on "Can't Afford to Live Here", a bittersweet ode to cohabitation that feels like a shoegazed take on the Beach Boys' "Wouldn't It Be Nice?"
The rest of the album isn't quite so dreamy. But as the Aquarium widens its palette to include frantic pop, heavy rock, and circus-like tunes, the hypnosis of those opening tracks persists. Hutto coaxes winding melodies from his keys, while Harris's beats animate the songs like adrenaline filling veins. On the surface, the group's chugging sound recalls early Quasi. But a breeziness also suggests the wistful retro-pop of the Rosebuds, and raw hooks evoke New Zealand pioneers like the Clean and the Bats.
All of which makes it a surprise that that this album is on Dischord. The legendary D.C. punk label has certainly broadened in recent years. But compared to more adventurous peers, its punk-based roster is still narrow, and you'd be hard-pressed to find anything this poppy and fun among Dischord's "records and stuff we sell." Give Ian MacKaye and company credit, then, for making The Aquarium the label's biggest curveball to date.
The key here is Hutto's keyboard playing. Unafraid of cheesy sounds or sugary melodies, he relies on energy and dynamics to breathe new life into old ideas. On "White House", he flies through ELP-style prog up into the helium-filled realm of Europe circa "The Final Countdown", but the track's urgency obliterates pretensions. "Credits" crafts a looping line from generic mall-store organ, and "Channel 9" sounds like a high-speed version of the "Munsters" theme. Somehow, the duo's vigor turns all of this into something unique.
It helps that the Aquarium's songwriting is so solid. The melodies here are instantly memorable, yet unpredictably paced. Tracks like "Through the Tunnel" and "Good People" dole out momentum shifts and chord changes in brain-sticking ways. The intensely hooky "Waiting for the Girl" even takes the catchiness too far; you might end up annoyed by how hard it is to erase the track's vocal melody from memory.
Hutto and Harris close with "Aquarium Dream", a spacey, cinematic instrumental that would fit well with the movie clips the pair used to project at gigs. Like many of the tracks here, it has a reflective, nostalgic feel. But the way Hutto and Harris inject their soaring music with rough chords and swinging pulse plants The Aquarium squarely in the here and now.
