Saddle Creek
2009
Enchanted Islands
About This Album
After their 2004 album, Beep Beep made a few lineup changes and took a step back from the Gang of Four/Wire-inspired angular post-punk that made up the bulk of Business Casual to make a cleaner album. That's not to say that the new direction makes the band any more mainstream, or a whiter sheep in the Saddle Creek catalog. The mathy signatures and weird anti-progressions that cause Beep Beep to stick out glaringly from the Conor Obersts and Rilo Kileys of the Omaha-based label are still inherent, but the group's edginess has become slightly worn away. The most obvious change is that Chris Hughes' once shouty vocals now waver between a top-octave falsetto, brassy Enon-esque sing-saying, and breathy oohs and aahs. Also, while Eric Bemberger's guitar work is still built on atonal and modal scales, it isn't doused in razor distortion, leaving it as a dirt-free, twangy tone, à la Up on the Sun-era Meat Puppets. Like Up on the Sun's titular track, "Return to Me" has a Nashville country ballad feel, and is surprisingly subtle in contrast with the rest of the album, which often feels like a vehicle for Bemberger to show off guitar runs and inventive chord creations, while thumbing his nose at traditional verse-chorus-based song structures.
Track List

Disc 1 (try tracks 2,3,4,5,6,7 and 8)

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Disc 2

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