Welcome to Bobby's Motel

From the beginning, Pottery refused to be pinned down. On their debut EP, No. 1, they zipped from angular guitar pop to garage-psych to motorik rhythms with a fervor that, it turns out, was just a warm-up for Welcome to Bobbys Motel. Musically, the Montreal quintets first full-length is surprisingly cohesive, coalescing around sweaty punk-funk that owes a heavy debt to LCD Soundsystem, Gang of Four, and especially Talking Heads (on the punchy Hot Heater, Austin Boylans wild-eyed yelps are a dead ringer for David Byrne). What Bobbys Motel lacks in stylistic wandering, however, it more than makes up for in restless energy and tricky structures; songs such as Under the Wires are packed with sudden tempo shifts and busy breakdowns and fills. The album is such a big jump from No. 1 that its sometimes jarring, but never dull. The way Pottery throw themselves completely into their music often has more in common with King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard than most of their more detached post-punk-inspired peers, and the theatrical side hinted at on No. 1 comes into all its flashy glory. With its dramatic tension and release and call-and-response vocals, Down in the Dumps could almost pass for a musical number; the gliding, cowbell-heavy disco-punk of Bobbys Forecast suggests that the album was recorded live in the motels lounge. When Pottery stretches out on Welcome to Bobbys Motel, they do so even more creatively than they did on No. 1, whether on Texas Drums Pt I & II, which gives equal time to expansive psychedelic vistas as well as the frantic sound that dominates on most of these songs, or Hot Like Jungle, the unexpectedly pretty love song that closes the album. Even when they slow down, theres a lot of excitement in Potterys music. Though they frequently threaten to steamroll over anyone within earshot of Welcome to Bobbys Motel, the band have so much fun that their listeners probably wont mind. ~ Heather Phares