Teeth behind the smile.
After three albums of intelligent, understated melancholy, it's business as usual for this Cali trio. Stately, midtempo tunes whose immaculate production belies the darkness at their core. Like An Ant Floating In Milk is typical: emerging from a woozy fug into blossoming psychedelia. But it's tracks like Show Yourself, which hint at the teeth behind vocalist Jim Putnam's dopey grin, cooing "It's nice to see a knife in your back". It's always the quiet ones you have to watch.
JAMES COWDERY
Dusted Magazine
San Francisco's Radar Brothers might be the most fascinating boring band in America. Nothing in the band's toolkit predates Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here," which was itself a bit the souped-up throwback.
The lyrics sketch scenes but don't fill in. The music, with its slow-thawing hooks and off-kilter whistling, surveys the ghosts of dead emotions. When the Radars strike gold, they're a reminder of why "cool" caught on in the first place.
What's fascinating about them? In an x-treme age, they’re damn near easy listening, baby. Their songs may be rooted in ’70s pop, but their ethos recalls the immaculate restraint of the pre-Elvis crooner. They communicate the full arc of human emotion without cracking a smile or a frown. They'll make a Zen believer out of ya. They're fucking consistent, coming and going. Their albums float with all the grace of a dark blue helium balloon approaching the ozone layer, or an acorn sinking toward the bottom of a mountain lake. If popular reaction is to be trusted, they bear about the same import.
More's the pity. There's too much music around. A lot of it’s swell. But taken at a glance, all the joyful noise bleeds into cacophony. In their calm detachment, the Radars pour a soothing antidote, mixed with full comprehension of the disease. There's sadness here, but it's behind the wallpaper.
The Fallen Leaf Pages settles comfortably into the band's canon, delivering no surprises, no gimmicks, no gags, no quirks and no affectations. Frontman Jim Putnam, by his account, writes these songs surrounded by the band, which explains the consistency. Radar Brothers are unmistakable, yet defiantly faceless. "Papillon" hints at anthemic sweep, then undercuts itself with that weird whistling. It's the only standout – the rest creates a mood of lackadaisical foreboding that overrides its parts. Which is how it should be, where Radar Brothers are concerned.
EMERSON DAMERSON
www.tinymixtapes.com
The winter thaw is slowly washing over parts of the Northern Hemisphere, and spring couldn’t be a more welcomed site. The days of rain and snow, wind and frost are about to be replaced by warm breezes and glowing sun. The evenings will turn from cold and cloudy to moonlit adventures by the faint, distant glow of city lights and stars. As we shed the outer shells of coats, sweaters, mittens, and scarves, minds turn to enjoying nature and the idealism that past youth brought. And so it is time to find the accompanying soundtracks of spring and summer — those albums and those songs that help us enjoy and remember wonderful warmer seasons.
May I offer up the first nominee for 2005: The Fallen Leaf Pages, the Radar Brothers’ latest offering. The album epitomizes lazy spring afternoons and casual evenings spent cruising the countryside or strolling the sidewalks of the city. Steve, Senon, and Jim have always had a knack for taking simple pop songs and transforming them into works brimming with hopeful emotion and wonderful music interplay, and The Fallen Leaf Pages is no different. The ease of the instrumentation and the hushed vocals do their part to loosen you up as the music whisks you away to the innocence of childhood and teenage dreams that have never left the recesses of your mind.
"Dark Road Window" rides the wave of a wistful guitar riff recalling the acoustic psychedelia of the early ’70s. The images the song paints transcend the lyrics, as whooping voices lend the music a breezy feel. It’s reminiscent of driving in a car going 75 mph with all the windows down or the top off, and not giving a second thought to where you’re going or if you’re even going to make it to a concrete destination. The meandering "The River Shade" runs like a small creek swelled with a recent summer thunderstorm. The track follows the same mellow ebb and flow most the album sways with, rarely deviating to rock the boat or burst the dreamer’s bubble.
Mellow is the phrase that pays when listening to The Fallen Leaf Pages. The album is an open look at the wondrous craft of songwriting and how song can conjure up images of youthful hope for the most mature of audience. The album never loses its heart throughout the thirteen tracks, concentrating on maintaining the relationship between the listener and their summery escapades. [4.5/5]
Jspicer