The 2kDozen 500: #19 - Pterodactyl, "Spills Out"

Wandering down the boy band margin these guys are with those harmonious, high-pitched man vocals. Doesn't matter how syncopated and clattering the drums. And I read there's only three of them, which brings a bilious gorge to the throat as I think about three-man "ubergruppe" like The Police - all miced up, all semi-digested in their own creative acids. Bleeurrgghh!

So far, so anemic. Not much of an impact in the first few tracks. But around the middle, the album starts to thicken up and flex its soupy scope. "The Hole Night" is a strange title for a tune, and the music itself gives me thoughts of ships thrown about on boiling seas with the crew armed only with sea shanties to ward off disaster. "Thorn" too swells and broods. The drums get bigger; guitars start to sound like saxophones; things begin to stack up as "the dreams spills out". "Zombies" twangs about a dusty border town with its cowboy britches on, asking the locals if they wanna be startin' sumthing in its best Michael Jackson voice. "Aphasia" closes with some adrenal push.

They're buddies with Parts & Labor and I can near broken pop genealogy. But I saw P&L a couple of years ago at Cafe Saki in Rusholme and they switched my hungry ears right off. So this is an encouraging development. Still can't quite pick up most of the words: I'm starting to think it's a genetic condition. Like the skin around my ear canals is too thick.

The one line I get from "Zombies" is "When I was younger/I was distant/But I'm alright now". So I'm guessing it's not about the George A Romero type undead. Similar pop pattern to The Zombies as well with the soft voices and the swoops and that.

Rating: Need Wax out of Ear Canals