Cords Wires

Bogus Blimp's first full-length, Cords Wires, is an album of moody, suspenseful soundtrack rock (for lack of a better term) that starts off playfully, but gets progressively more bleak as it goes on. The second track, "Brothers of Space," is a sort of audio cartoon (with five different character voices) about defending the planet from outer-space invaders, set to a backdrop of John Barry-like '60s spy jazz. Track six, "King Inst. King," is another story song, only with talking robots and computers and more of an electronic/mutant trip-hop backdrop. Meanwhile, the borderline industrial metal of the fifth track, "By Five O'Clock Tea," shows that when the band wants to get heavy, they can. But the rest of the album is more about suggestion and atmosphere than it is about laying anything directly on the table, musically or lyrically. The most striking moments come near the end, especially on "Sugar and Fear" (a quiet number whose lyrics -- "Sugar, coffee, cigarettes and fear/Tired and sad from being alive/Yet kind of happy: I will not survive" -- create a sharp contrast to the almost silly tone of the album's beginning) and "Flight to the Future," which evokes OK Computer-era Radiohead as it builds from a stark, sad piano line to a swirling crescendo of organ, cymbals, and electronic noise. All in all, Bogus Blimp covers a lot of stylistic ground here without being showy about it, while their balance of good-natured humor and flat-out depression gives their music an unusual kind of depth. ~ William York