Sometimes weird things happen. Things that no one can explain. You should know that I'm not one of those X-Files or Star Trek guys. I don't play any of those card games and I don't have all kinds of Close Encounters paraphernalia. But sometimes weird things happen, like this review thing. Don't you find that strange? What? You don't know what I'm talking about? Oh, well when you check out the review for the Hope 12 you'll know John and I had very similar experiences with similar style music around the same time. You see, sometimes when I get a big stack of CDs I look at the cover of some of them and I try to guess what the band is going to sound like, based on the cover. You may think I am lying, but from the moment I saw this album, I just knew there was going to be a band with sparse vocals and slow meanderings in the various forms of slow rock. Well, I wouldn't say that's what I knew in those exact words, but I could definitely tell that there would be male/female vocals flowing like molasses through the cracks of the songs. The cover just felt like that.

So, I find this band to be very enjoyable, very polished sounding in the way that just makes you know the people behind it know their shit. I guess in a lot of ways it is similar to their American label-mates, Sunday Flood. Similar because this is something that I could see coming out on a bigger-volume indie label like Tiger Style or Merge, but different because it's a bit too aloof to be considered by Capitol, like Sunday Flood could be.

One thing that I didn't get a feel for from the cover was how hokey it was going to feel listening to it. Most of the record is alluring in that it makes you sympathize with it and makes you want to think it's good, even if its not. One point where the siren's lure wears dangerously thin is when Rob's (we're on a first name basis) vocals peak in all their nasal anguish above the particularly meandering "A Perfect Silence".

In the end, I suppose everyday truth is always stranger than the metaphysical and unexplained, and this record is a prime example. More compelling than the obvious psychic bond that John Steinbacher and I had recently is the fact that, even though I don't really care for this record and neither vocalist can really sing, I wouldn't totally blow this band off.