Celabrasion

Kentucky sextet Sleeper Agent is not unlike many other young rock bands in that they borrow riffs, beats, and even snatches of tunes from the many rock bands that have gone before them on their debut album, Celabrasion. Seemingly absorbing lots of Nuggets-era garage rock along with other '60s rockers and some punks, they re-create some familiar sounds on the disc. Where they differ from their predecessors is in the way they combine those familiar sounds. Only one track on the album exceeds three-and-a-half minutes, but in these short tracks Sleeper Agent packs some busy arrangements that come across as spirited, if busy, mash-ups; they're like a battle of the garage bands in which several bands are on-stage at the same time. So, for instance, lead-off track "Get It Daddy" boasts several different time signatures and sections, with different choruses and hooks, as if it were a medley of a bunch of songs, and all of that is accomplished in under two-and-a-half minutes. One reason for this complexity may be that the band is an embarrassment of riches, in which guitarist Tony Smith shares vocal duties with singer Alex Kandel in a male-female alteration that spices things up, along with choral sections. Sleeper Agent calms down a bit after the first batch of songs on the LP, sticking to a midtempo pop/rock ballad approach for Kandel's showcase "That's My Baby," for instance, and to the much-used rhythm pattern of the Supremes' "You Can't Hurry Love" on "Get Burned." But they consistently come up with new ways to play some time-honored rock arrangements, making them more than just another new rock band. ~ William Ruhlmann