The first single from Oklahoma City's latest musical export The Uglysuit does no justice to the rest of the band's fervent, melodic self-titled debut album. "Chicago" sounds like it should be playing in the background of some climatic moment on the CW's Gossip Girl, to emphasize just how tragic life is when you're Serena van der Woodsen. The track opens with a prototypically bouncy indie rock-ish beat that actually sounds more reminiscent of something off This Desert Life by The Counting Crows than off their own album. It's as if the song was forced on them to ensure the band had at least one pre-made, prepackaged tune ready to go. Unfortunately, it's because of "Chicago" that the band is drawing the inevitable (and unenviable) comparisons to The Shins.
However, do yourself a favor and travel with me to a land where people actually listen to albums in their entirety before filing them away under "all too familiar indie pop rock." Do this, and you'll find that the rest of the album is so gloriously uninhibited that it would have taken a miracle for it to get through production unscathed by the likes of "Chicago." Two songs clock in at over 7 minutes, and, in a just world, the longest song on the album, "...And We Became Sunshine," would have been the group's first single. The song is near-epic in proportion, and gravelly voiced lead singer, Israel Hindman, holds his own against the guitars and piano that begin raining down about 2 minutes into the song. Hindman sounds like the love child of Conor Oberst and Jeff Tweedy, an entirely suitable vocal combination for a band that has art-rock leanings, particularly on reverb-heavy "Happy Yellow Rainbows" and the piano-driven "Brad's House."
The album closes with the soaring "Let It Be Known," an ambient track that exemplifies the true musical desires of these six dudes from Oklahoma. Far from the standard easy-listening fare that "Chicago" coughs up, the other eight tracks share more in common with their fellow city men The Flaming Lips than insipid indie rock bands like The Shins or more mainstream fare like Travis. And, at their best, the boys offer music that resembles a postmodern Pink Floyd, a younger, artier Phish, and a poppier My Bloody Valentine. Although they have a ways to go before establishing their own musical identity, The Uglysuit have more than enough talent to make it plausible that they'll get there someday.
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