If Puressence's self-titled debut were a person, it'd be the shy young man working stock in a used bookstore, shrinking at customers but figuring out a long, complicated epic poem in his head. Not only does James Mudriczki sing like Geneva's Andrew Montgomery with a Brooklyn open mike night accent, but the band pencils out light and powerful personal anthems with a strong, occasionally successful attention to detail, a floating, echo-filtered package that mines British arena rock, art-school ambition, romance novels, and the rigid noise of shoegazing. Core track "Traffic Jam in Memory Lane" is about seven floors below the Longpigs or Placebo, or even Shed Seven -- entertaining and excessive while at the same time derivative and unremarkable.
© Dean Carlson /TiVo