Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Sideasideb - 2012 - Car Sex

Alternative Rock
[FOR FREE]
<a href="http://sasb.bandcamp.com/"
Impressions

With easily the best record name of the year, Sideasideb are mining the outer edges of alternative rock music with 'Car Sex', with surprisingly listenable results. I'm going to use 'wankery' in the affirmative now because this album is filled with it, but unlike a lot of other records (half the records with the name 'The Mars Volta' on them, say) where the band lets loose with crazy guitar licks, effects pedals, and bursts of machine gun drumming, Sideasideb inject these moments into fully realized pop songs, not try to form songs around the noise. Nothing clocks in longer than three and half minutes either, a good sign we're not into progressive rock concept album territory. The vocals tend to fall into the 'dream-like' category (both singers) which gives 'Car Sex' a rather surreal tone - “The Cascade Room” for instance is like a walk down memory lane with rose-tinted glasses. “10 Speed” follows this pattern closely, until its midsection turns into a nightmare and the experimental aspects of the album kick off their initial appearance. Not content to simply bust out pop rock sound experiments for 6 tracks, Sideasideb take aim at different genres throughout album (and more straight forward things get on), going with post-rock on “Plum Trees Snow Laden”, while “Situation Smoke”s vocals and drums dominate the acoustic garage rock. Every songs sounds different than the last, but everything is held together by the dreamy quality the songs share and the occasional bit of instrumental mayhem. Treat yourself to some 'Car Sex', you'll be glad you did.

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