Published on Oct 29, 2004
It seems like there’ve been a lot of bands these past few years
who think they can get by on earnestness… y’know, the
attitude that if they’re just serious enough about their music, it
will automatically be good. What these bands tend to miss is the
importance of entertainment value. A little flair, please, and hold
that winking close-up for an extra beat…
Entertainment value is definitely not an issue for Spiraling, a
keyboard-driven quartet that puts Ben Folds, the Cars, Weezer,
Rush, Death Cab For Cutie and Queen in a blender and hits frappe.
The chief mad scientist is singer/songwriter/keyboardist/producer
Tom Brislin, aided and abetted by the audacious talents of
bandmates Marty O’Kane (guitars), Bob Hart (bass) and Paul Wells
(drums).
Brislin’s songs are whimsical, self-mocking little character
sketches, drenched in irony and mounted atop a musical foundation
full of energy and invention. This EP — the follow-up to the
band’s promising 2002 full-length
Transmitter — features four completely distinct and, yes,
thoroughly entertaining tracks.
The disc leads off with a taste of white noise and the chunky,
angular, proggy-sounding guitar riff that anchors “A Face For
Radio” (whose one failing is its clichéd title). Old-school
synthesizer tones swirl in and out as Brislin throws all the snide
he can muster at lines like “You got it made / What does ‘got it
made’ mean, anyway / If you don’t make anything? / No, you do not
make anything…”
“Ah Sugar” is pure novelty, and pretty damn funny at that. Our
narrator, this time supported by an expertly textured backdrop of
kamikaze piano and faux-prog synths, whines his way through a trio
of addictions, starting with good old glucose. I laughed out loud
at the end of the first verse of this one; I won’t spoil it for
you.
(It’s also amusing to note that this is bizarre little number
has the most proggy, Rick Wakeman-esque synthesizers on the disc,
since Brislin’s biggest gig to date was sitting in on Yes’s
symphonic tour a couple of years back, essentially warming the
keyboard seat until Wakeman — by most accounts the wittiest man
ever to be in Yes — was himself ready to return to the fold.)
Perhaps the most commercially-inclined — not to mention
brilliantly titled — track here is “Texas Is The Reason,” a cut
that kicks off sounding somewhat like Geddy Lee and The Edge
playing a song co-written by Ric Ocasek and Donald Fagen. In other
words, a frenetic bassline and airy, dynamic guitar figures,
counter-balanced by a deeply sardonic yet appealingly demented
lyric.
Closer “You Can’t Get There” starts out life as an atmospheric
piano ballad but builds into something much more interesting. The
combination of rich harmonies, all-over-the-map piano flourishes
and thunderous guitar chords suggests Queen, but really, it’s a
piece that stands on its own, right down to the steady-building jam
that closes the song out in style.
Despite a multitude of influences, Spiraling is like nothing you
can hear on radio today, and that alone would give me reason to
cheer them on. Powerhouse melodies, self-lacerating wit and bravura
musicianship — now that’s what I call entertainment.
[Editor’s note: For more information or to purchase
Challenging Stage
or Transmitter
, visit
www.spiraling.net.]