Unhistories

Unhistories is the type of album that's easier to appreciate than to actually enjoy -- it's easy to admire Singer's ability to deconstruct rock music to a pulp, with atonal shards, off-time pentatonic scales, and disjointed clashing strums. Barely holding everything together is a winding falsetto harmony line veering in and out of the dissonance. There's a certain charm to loose music, as when the bass player locks in on a guitar part and the drummer is doing his own thing, fluttering off time, while the other guitarist noodles away in a completely different world. Because the members of the band have proven track records in their endeavors, prior fans will probably defend the merit of this record faithfully. Call it no wave, call it freak funk, call it avant-garde brilliance; people who respect bands merely for their artistic sensibilities and originality will find a lot to like in Singer. ~ Jason Lymangrover