Well, this is weird. It was always a bit uncanny that Mobius Band were on Ghostly International, home of the glimmering D.C. maestro Outputmessage and a dozen or so other electronic mavens. But the group's second full-length album, Heaven, which Ghostly has co-released with Misra, affirms what an odd match-up this is. The title track of 2005's debut, The Loving Sounds of Static, was more up to speed with the current configuration of this trio; its chugging guitars, steady bass tap, and slightly airy, elongated vocals that suggested the French Kicks, poor victims of an artish rock scene hovering around New York City back in 2003-ish. But this second release is even bubblier and more straight-laced than its forebear, or anything the French Kicks have ever done.
The only reason the opener "Hallie" sounds interesting is because its engaging little synth twinkles are predictable; this grates after a handful of listens. And then you have Ben Sterling and Noam Schatz tossing in some powerpuff drums and a plagiarized Modest Mouse lick, making for a song that meanders too much, yet not at all. A slice of a pleasant moment is spliced too quickly to be memorable; listen to the song a few times and it will get memorably boring.
It's reasonable to call this album a sequel to Wincing the Night Away; it is as playful, as wintry, as powder-caked, and minutely epic as the Shins' third effort-- and would also fit right in with it rhythmically, melodically, and I suppose philosophically. "A Hint of Blood" has a rust-tinged, backlit guitar dancing stupidly around a major scale; when I say stupidly I mean to say it's trying to be inventive but isn't. Similarly, "Leave the Keys in the Door" does a thing that's typical on this album, halting and grinding forth the rhythm. The problem is that the tonal contrasts-- ragged and rough; sleek and dripping-- are cool in theory, but the melodies and ideas being fronted aren't strong enough to sustain them. Lyrically, there are too many similes, emaciated metaphors, and boring choruses like, "I don't need no/ Friends like these, no" ("Friends Like These). Elsewhere, they create a domestic scenario around a "paint" metaphor and decorate the Tom Petty-like chorus with whining, trumpet-like digital synth washes.
On "Under Sand", slippery croons seesaw in fifths around the same exact drum rhythm as practically every other song on the album, and the only pretty moment is the brief, glorious vocal soar by Peter Sax in the final moments of the chorus. But it dies down far too quickly. Back to the boring fifth seesaw-- ooh, a key change!-- and déjà vu drums. Cool cover art, though.
