In this seemingly new realm of made-for-major-label-yet-being-labeled-indie rock n' roll, it's pretty easy to dismiss lots of new bands that come around the bend as contrived or, worse, piggybacking on some sort of trend. Music, no matter what the level, is pop culture, and such things come and go. So, sparing the dear reader of an aside disguised as a review of how frustrating the implications of dime-a-dozen dollar-pandering is, let's take The Loving Sounds of Static as an album of musical songs.
Shuttesbury, Massachusetts natives The Mobius Band seem to enjoy playing with synths, though they don't put their fascination to use to alter the sonic landscape. "Taxicab" offers a pretty abrasive squall at the end that takes the song and tone into a new, more frustrated place, without getting outside the tightly knit house of disaffected, yet potentially catchy pop-rock that is constructed around this album. The keyboard lines always seem to come in at the right time, but they proceed to fade out as yet another line of vocals are delivered sounding just as apathetic as they were apparently written. There's not a blueprint for what vocals should do, but the smattering of clichés strung together line-to-line here is just disheartening. Lines like "One time I thought that I had hope/ but I started smoking lots of dope/ then I started getting older" may be sung as though the vocalist is uninterested, but the lines just make it uninteresting.
In the band's defense, Peter Katis, of Turn on the Bright Lights and "removing color from music" fame, was brought in to produce this album. Judging by the lyrics, the band may have wanted at least an element of the detached on the record, but the flat instrumental production that the predictable Katis gleam makes for an album in which the listener is left waiting for something to happen. But hey, at least you didn't have to read about this year's Urban Outfitters comp.
1. Detach
2. Radio Coup
3. Twilight
4. Close the Door
5. Taxicab
6. You're Wrong
7. I Just Turned 18
8. The Loving Sounds of Static
9. Philadelphia
10. Doo Wop
More about: Mobius Band
