Peel

This self-titled debut from the young Austin band, Peel is surprisingly solid. With high-pitched vocals, layers of fuzzy guitars and psychedelic keyboards, Peel manages to squeeze thirty years of pop influence into three minute packages that land somewhere between early Flaming Lips and Pavement. The album’s eleven tracks are promising and hint at talent beyond their years. The band’s age is thinly veiled, though. A childlike playfulness comes across in every song, yielding an album that gives the listener the feeling that this is the work of real high school friends who were a little smarter than their peers. School’s over now and this is their reaction to the world in which they find themselves.

The first track “Oxford” starts with a sugary sweet rhythm that gives way to the scornful lyrics: “If I had my way I’d demolish every building of rock polished to shine so bright like headlights in the daytime.” The first track is a perfect preview of things to come: whimsical keyboards, lazy, sarcastic vocals, and well-timed breaks that climax in a sea of noise. The sometimes heavy layering of guitars and keyboards adds to the whimsical nature of the disc but at other times, it only serves as a distraction from the simple rhythms that make Peel good in the first place. On a song like “Moxy Blues,” the band would have benefited from leaving well enough alone. The track is an otherwise good pop song that simply gets buried under a sonic landslide that whirls nauseatingly out of control. The multiple layers work best on songs like “Navy Waves” when they’re mostly confined to the breaks and serve a purpose.

Simple indie-pop isn’t all these guys bring to the table, though. Some of the best songs on the album have a little country twang to them too. “Sliding Doors” sounds like “She Don’t Use Jelly,” drunk on whiskey, while the brilliantly named “Love Soaked in Blood” feels like a country ballad on Ritalin. It’s obvious that these guys know what they’re doing when they pull out the steel guitar, after all they are from Texas, but even more impressive that they can make it fit in their formula of quirky pop.

As a young outfit, these guys still have a few kinks to iron out. “Workers Wake Up,” the album’s longest track, is also its least effective, mainly down to a weak vocal delivery. Peel is at its best when the band keeps the rhythms basic and the noise controlled. The album’s strongest tracks do just that. “Bells” lays the vocal harmonies of Josh Permeter and Allison Moore on a bed of guitar feedback and floating melodic keys. It sounds like something straight out of the Yo La Tengo catalog. That’s not to say that these guys sound better when they imitate other bands. Peel is good enough to be appreciated in their own right. It’s obvious that the Austinites have done their homework and although Peel sometimes channels more classic influences, it won’t be long before they reach the head of the new indie pop class.