Volcano, I'm Still Excited's self-titled debut album is a hooky, quirky '80s-inspired joyride that is light, frothy fun but leaves you with a slightly empty feeling. About half of the songs rush past and leave little impression, being silly filler like "By No Means" or instrumental fluff like "Firebombing London." It is sort of a bad sign that a band's debut is plagued by filler. Perhaps they should have cut down on the interludes and instrumentals and stuck to the songs, because the songs that do stick are pretty good: a combination of
Spoon's tough angularity,
Ben Folds' wordplay, and a cleaned-up version of Elephant 6's sonic adventurism. The sound is built around organ, primitive synths, guitar, and very simple drums. Throw singer Mark Duplass' plaintive vocals on top of lots of chord changes and energetic performances and you have something. Tracks like "Shouting Across the Water" and the pounding "In Green" are memorable and fun, the kind of songs that have you already looking forward to the band's next release and make this the kind of record you might just need in your collection (especially if you are finding the wait between
Spoon albums to be interminable). Just be ready to program it before you play it and hope the next record is more streamlined.