Search - They Shoot Horses Don't They :: Pick Up Sticks

Your brain scatters

E. A Solinas | MD USA | 04/07/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"One of the appealing aspects of They Shoot Horses Don't They's debut album was that it had a carnival sound, offsetting their loose, sort-of-experimental indie rock.



Well, "Pick Up Sticks" loses the whimsical edge to their music, but doesn't really replace it with anything else. There are moments where the music gels into an exquisite little indie-rock twist, but these are quickly drowned out by the awkward instrumentation and tortured vocals.



It starts off on a pretty good note, with the swaying stompfest of "One Fast Final Push." Lots of steely bass, riffs, and periodic cymbals with the trumpets joining in halfway. "This is the last song/it's everything I've dreamed about... I sing it right here to you!" yelps Nut Brown as if he's being prodded by a small stun gun as he sings.



Unfortunately, they lose that cohesion in the songs that follow, where they erect a chaotic fog of noise between themselves and the audience -- loosely-tied indie-rockers, organ-riddled chaos pop, meandering folk ballads that explode out into shrieking horn rock, fuzzy undulations, and yowling rockers crammed with horns and wailing vocals.



By the time I finished "Pick Up Sticks," I had come to one conclusion -- They Shoot Horses Don't They are not comfortable in their own sound. In fact, they don't seem able to decide what their sound is -- songs like "Speck of Dust" mutate randomly from one style to another, usually without warning. They sound like they're desperately trying to figure out how they SHOULD sound, without any preconceived ideas or preferences.



And nowhere is this more obvious than in their instrumentation, which seems afraid to stick to anything. Instead they spin up a haze of chaotic, headache-inducing sound, apparently hoping this will cover the the lack of inspiration in their stompy guitars, bass and drums. They have some clever moments with the blasts of horns, and the woobly experimental keyboard, but these lovely moments are rarely followed up on.



And Nut Brown's voice is a love-it-or-hate-it affair -- he yowls and wails everything as dramatically as possible, even when he's got nothing to sing. Personally, I don't love them. The lyrics are pretty good, but frequently rendered almost silly-sounding by the time Brown has wrung them through his vocal cords, soaking them in melodrama ("It's AAABOOOUUUUTT time/I follow the party line/between all that's good and fine!").



"Pick Up Sticks" is a mass of musical uncertainty, cloaked in fuzz, keyboard and horns to disguise its flaws. There are the seeds of a good indiepop album, but no shoots -- let alone blossoms."