Monday, August 30, 2010

I Think I Like Like The Symbolick Jews

You know that bizarre feeling you get when an album (or book or movie or whatever piece of whatever) really speaks to you in some totally nonsensical way that must really just be a personal perversity?  It’s not so much like “Oh my God, this band totally gets me” as much as “Oh my God, I think I get it, I think I get this band and have recognized some sort of soul in this album and am developing an interpersonal relationship with the artist.”  Well I got that feeling listening to Can I Trust You? by the San Francisco area band The Symbolick Jews. 

But that’s just my slightly intoxicated mind making friends with songs.

Can I Trust You? walks the line experimental and accessible like it’s a joke.  Clearly capable of making tight, commercially viable music, The Symbolick Jews, in the opinion of my super sensitive ears, compose a very neat song and then strip in down and let it loose.  In the same way that we dress ourselves up for a date, but, by the end, if you play your cards right, end up totally honest in the way that only the naked and vulnerable can be.  It’s the beautiful, ugly truth.

The album opens with “The Candidate (Burrr)” an atonal free-for-all that is part band tuning up getting ready to rock, part probable parody of experimental noise rock.  Like showing you pictures of them as a baby, The Symbolick Jews are baring their bones right up front and we cringe and laugh together.  Wiping the tears from our eyes, sighing heavily, we say “Jesus… Jesus” and move onto a wonderfully hopeful, spacey “Step Into the Bright Light,” which assures us that they are perfectly normal, affable, and reasonably romantic.

From there, Can I Trust You? reveals itself to be that album that I love enough to endure the eccentricities that make it as unique and lovable as the quirky female lead in a Fox Searchlight production.   Throwing in sirens or strangely faint and dissonant breakdowns that distract from an otherwise tidy song create character in what would otherwise be flawless and (face it) boring songs that wouldn’t forge a long lasting relationship. 

Like, wait a second, did I just here the silliest flute solo out of nowhere?

Shh… don’t worry about it, let’s just move on to the title track and dance slowly, hand in hand, with your head on my shoulder, and we’ll float on into infinite.

The album is good.  It’s eclectic and good.  Can I Trust You? is accessible without being boring, experimental without being alienating.  And you can download it for free.  So, like, you might as well.  Right? 

http://thesymbolickjews.bandcamp.com/album/can-i-trust-you

the symbolick jews are Determined To Be on tour this November

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