The Receiver Reviewed
The Receiver
Decades
(Stunning Models On Display)
Pinback have so many side projects under so many different identities it’d be easy to be fooled into thinking this was another.
Well, no Pinback, but there are strains of Belle & Sebastian, as both were the results of projects in pursuit of university degrees. Casey Cooper, like Stuart David before him, didn’t set out to form a band, but once he started decided to graduate into a fully fledged musical outfit. Along with brother Jesse, The Receiver is an analog entity in a digital world, full of warm electric piano, swirling vocal harmonies, and frequent periods where the drums drop out to ironically underscore the bass melody. The pounding “In Tunnels” recalls at once Simian’s “Never Be Alone” and the crystalline crescendos Death Cab For Cutie have perfected, though Casey Cooper’s alternating falsetto sometimes glides in impenetrable Floydian prog-clouds. “Goliath” grows in echoing notes and a fuzz tone following the aimless path of a housefly until it rams a pane of glass. Decades‘ density builds unnoticably until “Waves,” which resists the crowd-mollifying orchestrations of its predecessors until its own climax, a cinematic rush suggesting the brothers’ Cooper might next find themselves in film school.
— Kevin Keegan
Appearing: October 22nd at Beat Kitchen in Chicago.
