Able Baker Fox are a second-generation emo supergroup featuring
Small Brown Bike's
Mike Reed,
Ben Reed (
Mike's brother), and
Jeff Gensterblum, along with
the Casket Lottery's
Nathan Ellis. Recorded piecemeal as the bandmembers (who live in four different cities) were mostly occupied with other projects,
Able Baker Fox seem like an ideal group to do something entirely different from the bandmembers' other work, much like
Ben Gibbard and
Jimmy Tamborello did with the uncharacteristic synth pop delicacy of
the Postal Service. Unfortunately, however,
Voices is a completely uninspired, standard-issue emo record, with 11 songs that between them hit every cliché in the style, most of them more than once. There is absolutely nothing new or unique about
Voices, and little sense that any of the band's three singer/songwriters couldn't have contributed these songs to
Small Brown Bike or
the Casket Lottery, which makes it something of a pointless exercise suitable only for die-hard fans of the bands in question.