Lars Finberg is like a friend you're not sure you want to hang out with. He's a troublemaker, a possessor of a hyper-caustic (and often side-splitting) wit, and you wouldn't want to find yourself in his crosshairs. But you get the feeling from his recordings that he always has a story to tell, and if you don't kick back for a few beers with him, you're going to miss something great.
The former A Frames drummer has put his wry sense of humor to good use over the past few years, recording off-the-cuff garage-punk as the Intelligence, hitting his stride with last year's excellent Fake Surfers. With Males, his sixth album in as many years, the slate has been wiped clean. In addition to working in his new professional studio, Finsberg here collaborates with other musicians rather than handle all the work himself.
And, in true Intelligence fashion, it takes them only one-and-a-half songs to botch a chord. On early-album highlight "Tuned to Puke", the band stomps as Finberg spouts, "Everything's ruined and there's nothing to do on someone else's birthday." Without having to worry about playing every part, Finberg seems to place more focus on his vocals; he croons and shouts in equal measure, even barking the chorus to "Chateau Bandit" in French. Finberg's new rhythm section provides a more stable backbeat than any previous Intelligence record had, and the full band re-records a handful of older Intelligence tracks with varying results. One of those re-recordings, "Like Like Like Like Like Like Like", is biting satire behind a gloriously dumb veneer, a catchy Fall-inspired tune that pushes that Valley-rooted word to an unreasonable extreme-- all while explaining its Southern California origin. "The Beetles", on the other hand, takes one of Finberg's best lyrical turns and places it on top of plodding, garden variety garage-rock. Coupled with filler tracks like "The Universe" and "White Corvette", you have a 25-minute record that could still stand to be even shorter.
There's a moment toward the end of the title track that reveals the key to the Intelligence's appeal; after Finberg finishes his vocals, he leans into the microphone, shrugs, "That's it," and walks away with his band still playing the coda. Eventually, the song and the record close with the coda disintegrating into a vat of grumbling white noise, confrontational yet warm and inviting at the same time. Ultimately, Males is a record that's much like a night out with your most sardonic friend; it has its lulls, but it's mostly a good time and you wake up in the morning with all of your teeth, smiling that you didn't miss anything.
