THERE'S ALWAYS A FUCKING PROBLEM

My first reaction when I heard this was something like: "Sweet ford! This is like a collaboration between Dredg and a modern version of Gentle Giant!" Then I took my pills and went back to hear the exact same thing only with much more nuance and depth to the already existing generalisation...

With an endless track list, the songs seem to come from out of nowhere and then stop at the flick of the switch - or indeed seep right into the next one. The modern sounding Gentle Giant thingy is probably down to the, at times, hilarious usage of "Robin Hood" vocals as well as an uncanny approach to shifts and turns that zooms in and out of familiar places where poppy rock songs seamlessly flow together with electronic experiments, pensive piano sampling, acoustic laid-back guitar strummings and all out weird sonic behaviour.

Sometimes I get a sailor vibe in the vocal department - other times it feels like I'm visiting a small obscure Indie club downtown New York - and occasionally these two outer extremes are featured in the same piece and you effectively feel like you're cruising the streets of the city with a great big pipe in your mouth and a couple of emo chicks fishing from the side of your boat. It's futuresque in nature, oddly melodic and incredibly dense. I mean, this baby changes course ALL the time! Oh yeah, come sailing with two Stevie Wonders - who knows where we're going - and who the feck cares?!?!?!

There are no epics on this album - no long moog solos, nor will you find extravagant timpani playing, Hammond organs, Mellotron or bagpipes. What you get instead is a big bag of joy - a tremendously uplifting musical journey that snakes its way through a wide variety of styles that all seem to compliment each other. The melodic singing that sound so American in that Dredg like manner on a canvas of wall to wall guitar riffs, edgy rambling electronics and other such buzzing qualities, - and that is undeniably what makes this album stand out. Had the vocals not been backed up by these unorthodox measures, they would've sounded like a lot of things - not Pseudo Sentai. When you get right down to the heart of it: there are so many artists out there who produce similar sounding music - similar sounding productions and so on, but it's only when you hear the stuff you think you know, yet in a completely other lighting - Dolly Parton backed up by bassoons and Gregorian chants - it's right there you experience something new and audacious. This is indeed also what you encounter on this album - a will to mix already existing musical patterns into the batter in order to bake new buns.

I love the small instrumental breaks - the acoustic guitar pieces accompanied by the rain or the breath of the ocean. I also really dig the way these two guys have pumped this baby full of electronic titbits - stuff that goes 'BZZZZZZRRRRRRRWRW' and 'DUIOOOHUIIP' inside a time frame of a millisecond and in the back of a multi-track vocal harmony and some frisky spelunking guitar figurines.

This is music you put on, when you're eating bagels in the shower. It's the stuff that goes wonderfully well with beer and capers - bad red wine and herring pop corn. It makes me smile like a prairie dog - as a matter of fact, right now I am wagging my tale and screwing the furnace awkwardly. 3.5 stars.

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