Mobius Band

The problem with reviewing really good pop records is that they usually sound a lot like other really good pop records. The desire to heap exorbitant praise is stifled not just by the annoying whispers of journalistic integrity, but also by the hesitancy to diminish a great musical achievement by comparing it to other great musical achievements. The Loving Sounds of Static, the first full-length from Brooklyn via Shutesbury, Massachusetts electro-pop confectioners Mobius Band, is a really good pop record.

Peppering their simple, contagious melodies with electronic textures and perfect guitar hooks, Mobius Band is more humble and disaffected than the Strokes and more organic than the Postal Service. They craft songs for the rest of us: sleeping rock heroes working in cubicles, breaking up with dumb girlfriends, and living on mac ‘n’ cheese and Doritoes.

“Detach” and “Radio Coup” open with wide-eyed New York pop, mooning over the bittersweet end of a doomed relationship and ho-humming the death of Mick Jagger and radio’s integrity. The lead-footed kick drum and low-toned guitar of “You’re Wrong” whisper of 80s neo-synth one-hit wonders, but the melodrama crumples into a pile of melted plastic dreams while “The Loving Sounds of Static” fuel late night interstate contemplation as the white lines flash by with the redundant kick drum.

These pensive moods are also the album’s most empathetic. The vaguely digitized beat of “Philadelphia” underpins shadowy childhood memories, and the sad, lazy melody of “Taxicab” considers getting up from the couch before a guitar static headache forces legs to buckle under the weight of a lazy Manhattan winter. The single guitar chord of “Close the Door” rings a bell that tolls for thee, and “I Just Turned 18” burns its ironic, caramelized sweetness with post-adolescent confusion and disenchantment.

Not yet rock stars, but too fed-up with their present states of corporate slavery, Mobius Band is us, but with the enviable ability to frame their frustrations in melody. The struggle to find a place in the world and the inevitable resignation to a cubicle and a computer screen find a voice in their digitized “Twilight” of youthful idealism: “I will teach my children the lie. They will know it’s wrong to be right. It’s the only way they’ll ever get paid. I will toe that line.” Knowing that someone’s out there crossing that line makes it easier for the rest of us.

For more info see: mobiusband.com

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