When you're essentially partners in crime with a band of bad boys like the Black Lips, it takes extra effort not to appear tame by comparison. The Selmanaires have grown up in the burgeoning Atlanta indie scene nearly step-for-step with the Lips, but while both bands brandish a renegade, devil-may-care ethos, they each come at it from very different angles. Playing the ego to the Lips' id, the Selmanaires show off a (slightly) more civilized musicianship, exploring several decades worth of genres versus hedonistically ripping through three-minute Stones and Motown throwbacks.
That's not to say The Air Salesmen doesn't also go down well with a lukewarm can of Milwaukee's Best. On this sophomore effort, the band offers plenty of opportunities for debauchery, though they're cribbed in a more nuanced tone. On one hand, you have a heedless lothario anthem like "Just to Get Yr Love", its skyscraping guitar wails and cocksure come-ons a friendly parody of chic retro bands like Wolfmother or the Darkness. That frat-friendly attitude gets turned on its head, however, by the sultry yet cautionary "Nite Beat", a dance-rock song steeped in Franz Ferdinand-style soap opera sex and violence: "Get on the floor/ There's no time to implore.../ We lay down our instincts."
The middle third of Salesmen stands as the album's most brow-raising section. Here the band flexes some unexpected intellectual muscle to tackle bookish post-punk in the tradition of Talking Heads, Gang of Four, and Throbbing Gristle. It's a Rubik's Cube the band doesn't quite crack, but there's still plenty of existential charm in the Go4 offshoot "Reason and Chance", whether in its pleasureless metallic drone or observations on human rationality and determinism. It's no secret "A Small Room" and "GMAFB" (short for "Give me a fucking break") strive to emulate David Byrne's televangelist bark and his band's intricate rhythms, even if the crass demeanor and ham-handed songwriting more closely resemble late-1980s Red Hot Chili Peppers.
While this jerky genre-hopping helps to hold the listener's attention, some dabbling passes by too quickly. The catchy "Verdigris Intrigue", for example, is a lone psychedelic daydream amongst rawkers and post-punk reincarnations, a sad fact considering it's the strongest four and a half minutes here. Still, Salesman makes a stronger case for these guys as serious musicians than their clumsier debut, and their enthusiasm, for whichever genre they're copping, remains irrefutable. Even when borrowing from a library of ideas, though, exceptional bands find a way to make it all sound exclusively their own, and that skill remains the Selmanaires's biggest hurdle to date.
