It's always a little startling to realize just how long
the Spinto Band have been at it --
Shy Pursuit came out one year after the band's 15th anniversary -- but it's that sense of keeping on over time that seems to have kept the group's merry focus in place, a kind of rushed energy that parallels any number of indie rock fellow travelers without exactly resembling anyone else in particular. So a song like
Shy Pursuit's "Muesli" could call to mind bands like
Los Campesinos!,
Vampire Weekend, and even a bit of
Animal Collective, yet at the same time the complicated sunniness of the song, with its bit of brisk hyperactive rhythm section and sweet singing that almost becomes yodeling, exists in its own enjoyable universe. If anything, that genteel but enjoyable vocal approach is the hook throughout the album, giving the bandmembers plenty of opportunities to explore here and there as they choose -- it makes a song like "Take It" turn from being a near four-to-the-floor stomp into their version of an arena rock epic, always breezy and never pointlessly overbearing. If there's another secret weapon as such, it's in the breaks and beats throughout, evident from the opening "Cookie Falls," where the drums cut out and return in moments of on-the-nose precision. "Keep Them Alive" really kicks into a cheery theme song mode from the start before shifting into hyperactive stop-starts in the music, vocals going "If I could scare you first" over almost nothing, then building back up to a fun conclusion, while "Out of It" does a bit with similar loud/quiet contrasts, a reapplication of older alt-rock moves to newer structures -- and very nicely done at that. ~ Ned Raggett