Your iTunes may tell you that Tea Tornado, the latest release from Indianapolis' Marmoset, is only 31-minutes long, but don't be fooled! It's going to feel much, much longer. With its trite lyrics and stagnant, self-cannibalizing song structures, this feels like the work of a fledgling band rather than the sixth release from a group of musicians who have been playing together for 14 years.
Opener “Written Today” is a capsule view of everything that's wrong with this record. It's a jangly, milquetoast slice of guitar pop that sounds catchy for the first minute, just until the point where you realize that the song isn't going anywhere. There isn't going to be a guitar freak-out, an acid-jazz breakdown, an instrumental bridge, or even a chorus. Hell, singer Jorma Whittaker can't even be bothered to write more than two verses (although that won't stop him from singing the same ones over and over). The styrofoam cherry atop this cardboard sundae is Whittaker's sleepy delivery. He sounds like Stuart Murdoch, only half as clever and without the Scotsman's affecting streak of sincerity. He gives this batch of songs, which already sound boring and underdeveloped, a grating edge of smarminess.
The most persistent source of frustration throughout Tea Tornado, however, is the fact that there seems to be the seed of a good song planted in every mediocre one. Yet track after track unfolds in a depressingly linear fashion, seemingly building toward a resolution that the band never delivers on. I'm four songs in before I've encountered anything that even shows signs of life. “He's Been Napping” — with its fuzzed-out bass and chorus of raw, echo-drenched shouts — is the first track to display any kind of dynamism or energy. Marmoset graciously compensates for this momentary flash of inspiration by allowing the song to dribble to a halt well before things get too interesting. No, in place of big instrumental flourishes or noisy post-punk deconstruction, we get nothing but repetition, repetition, repetition. That's right: if there's one lesson Marmoset has to teach us, it's that anything worth saying once is worth saying again. And again. And again. And again…
Tea Tornado is an album that disappoints on almost every level. Marmoset quashes whatever promise their compositions hold with such consistency that it seems almost purposeful. Is that the point? Is this some kind of postmodern thing? I don't know, and I don't care enough to find out. I don't care if lines like “You can't understand my evil” are supposed to be ironic, and I don't care to know why there's an apostrophe in the song title “Oh' Dear Handlebars.” No display of intellectual gymnastics can redeem a collection of pop songs as joyless as this.
1. Written Today
2. Empty Room
3. Strawberry Shortcakes
4. He's Been Napping
5. Come with Me
6. Toy
7. Hallway
8. Peach Cobbler
9. Musing
10. Gretchen
11. Run Away, Teri
12. You, Blueberry Muffin
13. I Love My Things
14. Oh' Dear Handlebars