Like their current tour mates Of Montreal, this Chicago quartet know how to keep ’60s-inspired guitar pop interesting: you throw in as many different sonic signifiers as you can. The songs on this their second album keep mutating; they never stay put for long. Over the four thrill-filled minutes of “Trucker Speed,” the band zip among jangly electric-guitar fuzz, an Afrobeat percussion breakdown, and a psychedelic string section evidently on loan from DJ Shadow’s vinyl collection, and they make these disparate elements cohere, another lesson they’ve taken from Of Montreal. These are no file-sharing dilettantes but hardcore music nerds who’ve fully digested their private pleasures. Lacking a personality as forceful as head Montrealer Kevin Barnes, they haven’t yet figured out how to make their slyly built music mean much beyond second-hand obsession. But they probably will.
The M’s + Of Montreal | March 5 | Middle East downstairs, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge | 617.864.EAST
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On the Web:
The M's: http://www.wearethems.com/
