CD Review

Finally an alt record that takes all the Franz Ferdinand Mini-Mes by the neck, rubs their faces in the lackluster heaps of discordant doodie they’ve been leaving behind and paddles them good.

Comparing the Lilys to almost any little-known alt outfit (particularly old rivals like Brian Jonestown Massacre) would be accurate and keep them safely hidden from the mainstream. Indeed, indie geeks with an insect's sense of serial monogamy will most likely sound off with grand mal name-dropping outbursts within the next couple of weeks, and yes, cryptograms like Winston Giles and Gil Mantera (okay, and the Boredoms and Slowdive and…) could be tidily set forth as similar artists. But regular six-packers will get a lot out of this band, whose Brit-Invasion 60s-ness and Zombies-burgling won them a failed one-album trial on Sire which, fortunately for us, motivated them to get weirder, catchier and infinitely better, bringing them to their present state, a pleasant shade of subsonic Verve interrupted by Spacemen 3 shoegaze (translation: it’s very nice).

The hallucinogens take immediate effect upon up-tempo kickoff track "Black Carpet Magic," which charters a madly wonderful pair of chords to give the world-weary lyrics ("Everyone knows everything") a nice power-cruise. It’s clear from the start that, unlike most heavy users of electronica, the band allows their samples to go reverse-polarity-loud on you, jumping bug-eyed off the disc and into your face in a state of barely contained spazziness, stereophonic whack-a-moles. They aren’t consistently worthy of encores, although thankfully the band sees their disposability just as clearly and uses them as fright-wig Kleenex.

Keeping with the scattershot tradition of today’s indie poppers, the record’s grooves range from Bay City Rollers funkadelica ("A Diana’s Diana") to reverb-washed Neptune-adelica ("Where the Night Goes"), but song by song, all of it melts into your head, relentless, narcotic and detached, yet ultimately positive. The title track is, oddly enough, a hummable little instrumental that ends with the drummer going off on his own for a few measures as if he were practicing his 4/4 beat-keeping for the local Judas Priest tribute band. “OICUR” provides the most Floydian moments, sidetracked along the way by acoustic piano lines that lend a Beatlesque flair.

Try as they might, it’s impossible for the Lilys to hide their professionalism and common sense – this album is less a case of stoners making music than musicians making like stoners, and the results are, well, pissa.

For more info see: myspace.com/thelilys