The Pauses
A Cautionary Tale
New Granada
It has taken me way too long to finally listen to The Pauses, given all of the praise I’ve been hearing about my hometown band for what must be going on for two years now, but – in my defense – it took the band just as long to get their shit together and put some music down on disc. (On file? On vinyl? Whatever!)
A Cautionary Tale, with it’s ridiculously adorable album cover that copies the Golden Books series of all of our childhoods, is indie pop getting frisky with the fuzz, and throwing everything but a ukulele into the sound mix. (Oh, no, wait – there’s a uke in there, too!) It’s ambitious, it’s nostalgic yet perfectly present-day, and it was well worth the wait.
“Go North,” the hit-deserving opener, introduces the sweetly precious vocals of Tierney Tough which blend the spices of Rainer Maria’s Caithlin De Marrais, Metric’s Emily Haines, and Magnapop’s Linda Hopper. (Remember them, ’90s children?) You could just spread her voice on a cracker, it’s so instantly likable.
From crazy catchy, lightly electronic tunes (“Beyond Bianca”), to pretty keyboard melodies that float above hypnotic drum beats (“Pull the Pin”), and onward into the trippy yet accessible piano driven “Little Kids,” this modest release (of just eight songs + one secret track) pulls back the curtain on a band Orlando can be proud to call its own.
The Pauses: http://www.thepauses.com
