Thin White Rope
From way out of left field, maybe even from the stadium parking lot, comes this strange but mesmerizing '60s-style rock band from Davis, Calif.
On the jacket sleeve of their fourth album, the band members provide some unusual insight into their material: "These are flat round songs. Some are clumsy, like they have magnets buried inside, off-center."
Off-center or no, TWR provides a rare listening treat. The first track, "Hidden Lands," for instance, rings with that jangly guitar sound that, while it seems to be almost everywhere these days, rarely manifests the eerie quality imparted to it here by songwriter and lead singer Guy Kyser.
Kyser's lyrics sometimes leave themselves wide open to interpretation: "And someone in the phone knew everything I'd ever known/ Hummed sound tracks to dreams I had forgotten." After each track, you do a memory check: Kyser's work often sounds vaguely like something from an old Buffalo Springfield record or by the Doors at their most laconic. But this is a unique group, one that will stop you dead in your tracks. (Frontier/RCA)
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