You gotta hand it to these guys. They cross the Pacific with their debut album and serious touring, and then apply themselves diligently to the writing of this new album. To their credit, they didn't rest or coast at all. Instead they've reinvented themselves within their mixed bag of rhythm nuts sound. The band flaunts this new 'tude by starting with "Limit Of Shunt," before "Chubb" kicks in with those familiar chiming, thumping start-stop rhythms we heard in last year's Free Signal. Vocalist Hunz Van Vliet matches guitar player Michael Mullins' penchant for dialing in different sounds for each occasion (droning Tool-like vocals in "Slipstream" and soft-spoken-ness interrupted by Allan Aguirre-like atonal counterpoints in "Army Of Me"). Like the album's title, the result sounds like a schizophrenic that is discovering the healing process -- all over the map, but honing in on one direction. This approach isn't forgotten in the lyrical process, either. We hear references to "selling my peace for anarchy" in the lamenting and stirring "These Stains," the threats of "if you complain once more, you'll meet the army of me" in another, and the gritty narration of "...the stitches have come undone, the wound has just become worse..." in the coyly-titled "Angst By Numbers."
In their fight for recognition in a busy scene and on a young label, Beanbag has given itself the right ammunition -- a strong follow-up album.
Similar sounding releases
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2002mewithoutYou[A->B] Life
2000Green Olive TreeThings I Tried to Be
2004NirvanaWith the Lights Out
