The third album by the
Poster Children's electronic alter egos
Salaryman,
The Electric Forest comes nearly a full decade after the side project's debut, and over six years after its follow-up. Overall, however, it sounds like it could have been recorded during the same sessions.
Salaryman's raison d'être is a slightly skewed, tongue-partway-in-cheek take on
Tortoise-style post-rock. Taken either as parody or in earnest, the result is the same: choppy rhythms in off-kilter time signatures, electronic keyboards pulsing underneath distorted heavy guitar riffs, and distorted found-sound voices occasionally drifting through the middle distance. The only thing lacking is a particularly interesting musical and/or philosophical viewpoint, or at least some memorable tunes. As it is,
The Electric Forest sounds like the
Poster Children came across a cache of unfinished
Salaryman tracks and decided to polish them up and send them out. Hardcore post-rock aficionados and
Poster Children completists are the album's only real audience, and even they're more likely to be bemused than transported.