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ALL MUSIC GUIDE
The debut from California pop underground tunesmiths Meow Meow begins
with the crackling of the radio dial. This has been done before, but
instead of trailing off into a pretentious wash of post-rock noise
passing for a well-written song, it does the exact opposite. Lush harmonies,
a love of melody, and old-fashioned pop sensibilities permeate Snow
Gas Bones, bringing to mind alternative rock heroes like the Posies,
the Boo Radleys, and Spiritualized. There are hypnotic seven-minute
epics ("Finis"), slices of pop perfection ("Sick Fixation"),
and delicious balladry on the closer ("Wear You Down"), but — and
this is not necessarily a bad thing — one would be hard-pressed
to find anything truly groundbreaking about the material. What sets
the band apart from its mentors, and keeps this retro-tinderbox from
exploding, is guitarist Kirk Hellie's heavily processed guitar. He
wields it like a matchstick, threatening to burn every sweet, harmony-laden
chorus and melodic bridge into a smoldering ruin. It's this reverence
for psychedelia that allows the album to transcend complete alt-rock
facsimile. These are meticulously plotted-out pop songs that reveal
surprisingly complex layers of sound. "Amaurosis," with its
descending melody and ghostly vibes, sounds like a cross between Pink
Floyd's "Nobody Home" and Portishead's Dummy filtered through
Black Sabbath's "Planet Caravan," all the while waiting to
implode its middle section in a deft nod to Goldfrapp's equally sonic "Lovely
Head." It's awfully hard to describe Meow Meow without comparing
them to the bands that have so obviously inspired them. This is not
to say that the group lacks originality. It's just that the idiom in
which they choose to work in is so well-documented, mined, and distinguishable
that references become adjectives. A record like Snow Gas Bones would
have won the group legions of fans in the early '90s, and a single
like "Sick Fixation" would probably have ended up on a slew
of period "hit" compilations. However, with groups like the
Darkness stoking the flames of the last century's predawn glow, Meow
Meow, who are better than 80 percent of this era's so-called indie
pop bands, may surprise some people by making that fire roar. — James
Christopher Monger
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