Thursday, November 8, 2007

Aislers Set - The Red Door

(Slumberland, 2001)

Aislers Set does everything right on here and the ever-consistent Slumberland Records wins again. “The Red Door” is hard-charging fuzzpop, more coy than fey, and clearly descended from the bloodline of Slumberland Adam-&-Eves the Black Tambourine. Feedback bursts in the guitar solo make this about as white-hot as such things get. The band’s rough ‘n’ raw live recording of “Warm Girls” is a fine pit stop on the way to “Summer’s Reprise,” a lush, beautifully-arranged pop song flaunting all the catchy features the cardigan-wearing, bobbed-hair-having crowd could possibly want. Burbling organ? Yep. “Ah-ah-ah” backing vox? You gots it. Sunny strummin’? Sure! Some tasteful trumpet in the choruses swerves us nearer Belle & Sebastian territory, but a tougher backbeat throughout establishes this as its own thing. A steal at $3.50 from the label.

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