Busses
“Busses”
Self Released
My immediate, kneejerk reaction to learning I would review a band called “Busses”? “Oh good, another ‘superfluous letter’ band ( see Wavves, Mayyors etc.)” continuing the chilling, band name misspelling parallel between early ’10s indie rock and early 00′s rap metal”. Then I reconsidered; how DOES one spell the plural of “bus”? Turns out it could be “buses” or, the less common but also correct, “busses”. I’ll give this band the benefit of the doubt and hope that’s how it’s spelled in their hometown of Philadelphia.
Anyways, on to the album. Busses eponymous debut establishes one thing clearly: this band has its own sound. Nothing genre defying or overly exciting, but Busses sound like a band led by their own idiosyncrasies as opposed to a band guided by the prevailing sensibilities of current indie rock. These dudes definitely have a love both for the off kilter, pseudo-lead guitar playing found on many late 90′s DC records and some of the headier sounds found in general-American classic rock. Singer/Guitarist Dave Brett’s lines recall a recontextualized, Burning Airlines era J. Robbins. I might be alone on this but the intro to the opening jam “Foundation Myth” reminds me of a psychedelic remake of the BA song “The Surgeon’s House” off Identikit. This is a compliment. Throughout the record, Brett takes a “sonic maximalist” approach, filling up as much of the sound as he can with jagged guitar. At times this approach feels heavy handed, but with so many players out there bland-ing us to death due to a misguided belief in the imperative of “subtlety”, it pleases me to hear a guy try and fail at times than not really try much at all. Busses rhythm section also scores some points by keeping things tight and moving forward, except when the band sinks into a bit of self-indulgence.
That brings me to the first of my two main gripes with this record. Busses has an E.P. length track list but an L.P. length playing time. This albums boasts some really cool moments, but not a lot of really great songs. Each track hooked me, at least fleetingly, but more often that I would have liked, Busses lost me due to a lack of focus. A few edits here and there could go a long way to making this a more coherent and enjoyable start-to-finish listen. Gripe two: Brett’s singing. Yep, turning on the dude after I just praised his guitar playing. I respect that he doesn’t ape any front man I’m aware of (though, at first, I thought there might be some Perry Farell shenanigans going on, I recanted after a few songs), but somehow his delivery distracts in a negative way from the rest of the proceedings. There’s no lack of ability here; Brett hits all the notes just fine, but the timbre of his voice, his cadence and his phrasings don’t do the overall sound any favors. Brett’s not a total band killer, like Extra Life’s Charlie Looker (shudder), but there are more passages on Busses I wish were instrumental than not.
All of that said, I think Busses possesses the potential to make some really killer records in the future. A little more concision, a little more direction, and a little less of the kind of singing that populates the tracks on their debut will go a long way.
