Like Cartoon Vampires

When co-singer/songwriters Duncan Troast and Nick Corson debuted their project the Convenience, it was with the funky, affectionate synthesizer pop of 2021s Accelerator. Even with a different songwriting team, the Conveniences sound was in line with their gig as keyboardists/multi-instrumentalists for Video Age. Saying they wanted fewer buttons and switches this time around, Troast and Corson step out of the 1980s and into the 2000s with the Conveniences second album, Like Cartoon Vampires. "More guitar" doesnt quite cover it on an album whose wiry, angular sound, spiky rhythms, and disgruntled vocals use the rock revival of bands like the Strokes, the Killers, and Franz Ferdinand as a springboard for what is ultimately a more dissonant, experimental record with gnarlier guitar lines. They establish the switch-up on catchy, melodic opener "I Got Exactly What I Wanted," one of a few numbers in which Corson can evoke Lou Reed. They keep the energy levels up on a pair of punchy, driving rock entries, "Target Offer" and the agitated "Dub Vultures," before taking listeners into more exploratory territory over many of the next ten tracks. This includes the sparser, trippy "Prayr," the dingy and squealing "Opportunity," eerie spoken-word entry "Rats," and the albums meandering, ten-and-a-half-minute closer, "Fake the Feeling." Throughout, alienated lyrics contend with the often-relentless guitar lines as they imagine being other people in other times and places, sing for "People that well never know" ("Prayr"), and seem to quote fragments of lyrics from across the rock era in piecemeal fashion ("I cant see me lovin nobody but--," "Dont stand so close to me," etc.). The Convenience are perhaps never more infectious and discontented as on "Western Pepsi Cola Town," a proto-punk-adjacent jam inspired by late-stage capitalism. A little scattershot and wholly unexpected, Like Cartoon Vampires nevertheless makes an artistic and existential statement while offering up a few could-be alternative hits along the way. ~ Marcy Donelson