It begins in shambles. Rubble rubble rubble. You bull-charge through the cake, giving yourself a buttercream icing toupee. It feels natural and proper. It slips off but -- oh! -- I got that last chord I've been wanting to collapse on for the whole damn song. I'm excited by this feeling, even if it's gone before I can properly stroke it out...
Jenny Hoyston may be the cousin of a sister of a niece to something older and greater, but she sounds so right and righteous, so sprightly and anti-cautious that I can't help but applaud the woman for her strength. She's the anchor of this jangly, jaunty jumble, and that's no easy thing to pull off. I can't help but wonder how much better she and her mates would be in a live setting. On album (once you get past the ear-perking quirkiness of its quick-jumps and seemingly impromptu choruses), they don't move this reviewer much beyond a shinning example of why bands like Yeah Yeah Yeahs will never be as cool as they look.
I don't know what it is with Erase Errata. Perhaps it's that when they hit wildly pop moments, like the backup vox on "Let's Be Active C/O Club Hott," you wish they didn't feel quite so tentative. Here is a group with rampant, squirming ADD, yet they crash into some pretty neat-o ideas here and there. Definitely a lot more so than on their previous Other Animals. And like that album, At Crystal Palace is short as hell.
But you can tell there is a great deal of effort on display, so I am willing to forgive yet another EP lengthened LP. I've got to see them live; I can see why SY digs 'em. They're a brightly colored train wreck of punk wank invention. It gets a 3 for lack of originality, despite so much originality within the overdone slipshod no-wave framework. However, Hoyston sings more than on Other Animals, and she's artfully restrained with it. So at the very least, Erase Errata seems to be evolving a bit. They even do a tune en Espanol!
...close my eyes and grit my -- Is she talking about me? Bush Tetras, melon head room temp bump neck to neck, and I’d say what the heck but what's it mean. To be clean to be clean to be clean. Bump my head to a rest to a rest.
1. Driving Test
2. Ca. Viewing
3. Go to Sleep
4. Retreat! The Most Familiar
5. Suprize It's Easter
6. Let's Be Active C/O Club Hott
7. Flippy Flop
8. Owls
9. Ease on Over
10. The White Horse is Bucking
11. A Thief Detests the Criminal
12. Harvester
13. Alligator
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