MORE SKIN WITH MILK-MOUTH

Giraffes? Giraffes! is for sure a talented pair of musicians. There are great polyrhythms, interesting odd time signatures, and the music is never difficult to listen to. All the chords are great and sometimes things get downright beautiful. However, there is a bit of a problem with More Skin with Milk-Mouth: although there's wonderful music on the album, not much of it stands out. Most of it never goes beyond incredible, though there is some great music to be found.

It's not that the production or sound of the instruments are bad. Right from the beginning cool guitar tapping begins, and once the drums drop right in there's an interesting atmosphere surrounding the listener with textures along with the unusual rhythms, with a texture distantly related to Discipline-era King Crimson, though not nearly as dense and far more bright and cheery.

It's not that the compositions are bad either. The band is able to create plenty of free-form structures in this album, and although their music tends to repeat due to the genre, they have a unique use of phrasing that brings their songs to the fullest.

There are even plenty of great moments. Most notable is in the mouthful of a titled song " I Am S/H(im)e[r] As You Am S/H(im)e[r] As You Are Me And We Am I And I Are All Our Together: Our Collective Consciousness' Psychogenic Fugue", where towards the end a wonderful monologue giving an interesting perspective of dreaming and the nature of life comes in, backed up by beautiful ambience and post-rock lushness.

However, there isn't really tons to make this album stand out. It's very nice listening to it, but it isn't a masterpiece. Here's hoping that this great talented band can use these great sounds they have already developed and forge a masterpiece in the future.