STILL SINGLE

A space for thoughts on music and culture, as written by Doug Mosurock and a select handful of individuals. This is intended as a supplement to our regular feature Still Single, published on Dusted Magazine. Updates will run here more frequently, and may feature writing on music not covered in the column. Compact discs are still not accepted for review -- we have more than enough vinyl and the occasional cassette to worry about.

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Doug Mosurock
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November 6, 2009

Pillow Queens – KooKoo Legit LP (Monofonus Press)

Pillow Queens LP

Wow, if there’s one thing the Pillow Queens are experts at, it’s memorizing a script. They do not improvise or deliver any surprises, as they’re well aware that surprise is unacceptable to the nebulous What Matters Shot-Calling Committee in power during the second half of this decade. Another big “no-no” is displaying too wide a sonic palette within the boundaries posed by a single album. You don’t want listeners asking themselves “Is this the same band?” after every second or third track gets half-a-minute in and you want them to be comfortable with vocals that go beyond inspiration and straight into the loving arms of plagiarism. Once again, The Pillow Queens score high, as the vocalist, (most assuredly a ‘Zach’ or ‘Ryan’ or ‘Joel’) does get a little wild with the decision to copy Isaac Brock and then simply skip that middleman to copy Frank Black, though Zach-Ryan-Joel never does this in the same song. The world can only handle one Mike Patton! Now that everyone is wondering what currently-approved, safe-and-easy style The Pillow Queens chose as the sonic recipe…the ready-in-five-minutes instrumental hand that the Queens hope to play and win with…I should just bring the review to a grinding halt, concluding in five words or less that You Are Going To Like It! Not ‘Love it’, but ‘like it’, because ‘loving’ a band’s chosen direction implies that the target audience listens to their respective guts with a genuine affinity for certain artists or that they rock personal tastes as yet untarnished by what’s heard on some marketing department-programmed satellite channel (named “The Indie Way” or “Left of Boring” or something) or inside of an Urban Outfitters. The Pillow Queens are three Zachs/Ryans/Joels and one probable Rachel, Bekah, or Lindsey that really, really, really hope you like their spazzy-but-not-too-spazzy song structures and approachable guitar histrionics and yelp-yelp-rated-PG-13 vocals, because they really hope it wasn’t a bad idea to drop out of college and spend a ton of money on the Warmed-Over & Loaded w/ Quirkiness Early Modest Mouse package, especially since everyone seemed perfectly comfortable and ready to go with the 100% Heart-Free Shoegaze w/ Co-Ed Vocals Mixed Way-Up-Front deal. (http://monofonuspress.com)
(Andrew Earles)

2 years ago • Notes