One Warped Biography

i don't even know where to go with this. I looked at one warped release yesterday in Mutts' Pray For Rain. Well, although I'm finding it easier to digest Boom.Period, the debut LP from Michigan trashcan pop duo Biography, it is definitely not of this world. This is the kind of warm studio pop that talented ensembles of the 70s would have created in a parallel universe. It's wonky, unrefined, jagged, yet infused with an innate sense of fun and frivolity, like the house band in the background of a Cold-War era D-grade sci fi rom com. If that existed. Which I'm sure it must have - that sounds too good to have passed up, right Larry Cohen?

Boom.Period can be gat here - it's well worth it, it's grafting onto my inner ear as we speak.

Biography - Hope Is What We Aim For
Biography - A Great Lakes Song

It's Raining Mutts, Hallejullah!

Man, I'm not sure what to think with Pray For Rain, Chicago band Mutts' debut album. Opening with 'Fool', one of the strongest tracks on offer, it's nevertheless immediately apparent this isn't your average rock band. Firstly, the lead singer Mike Maimone sounds like Samuel T Herring from Future Islands doing his best Tom Waits impersonation. Then marry that to to chugging guitar and some meaty rhythms and you have the aforementioned Waits fronting a boozy grunge band. Things sway towards barroom swagger and swinging cabaret, yet nothing is ever cemented in any kind of regularity, or even reality. The Wurlitzer organ grind throughout is as iconic as Maimone's guttural tones, helping to further drive this macabre concoction that much further into a hyper reality akin to a Tim Burton saloon scene - if he ever had one. Try it out - its eclecticism may be your cup of tea.

Mutts - Fool
Mutts - Throwback