(ear X-tacy Records)
For a band that broke up 4 years ago, The Pennies are releasing one of the freshest, most vibrant records in recent memory.
The purposefully, dreamily, zanily off-kilter pop/rock band flaunted plenty of wicked riffs and killer hooks on their first album, 1999's Come, We Go. Fans of the Flaming Lips, who marveled at their growth, will find themselves in similar territory here.
They could still kick out a Pixies-style rave-up like "Where Crows Attack" (smartly aided by Liberation Prophecy's Jacob Duncan praying at the church of Albert Ayler) and sci-fi Krautrock, but score even more impressively with some percussive ballads structured and textured in the later style of a Grandaddy or Mercury Rev. Strings, horns and keyboards expand the songs out of the nightclub and onto the stage, revealing a composer equally familiar with Sondheim and Sonic Youth. Bandleader Jeremy Podgursky and his then-colleagues did what few
accomplish - his compositions and performances go beyond rock 'n' roll and leap out of the speakers, flying away with wonder and excitement and the question of what is and what could have been...
c. 2006 LEO Weekly
