Pitchfork

Bright Eyes mixed with "Hotel California" sounds like just about the worst musical combination imaginable, the kind of auditory experience that would have most reasonable people reaching to clean out their ears with an old screwdriver. And yet, Pseudosix tidily merge the role of the mega-vulnerable songwriter with the burned-out, late-night California drive that only a 70s supergroup could've mustered on their latest self-titled record. It shouldn't work, but it does.

The first track, "Some Sort of Revelation", plays like a warning: a bit of scorched-earth go-for-broke balladry mixed with the swooning group vocals and out-of-nowhere crescendos that seem so in vogue with indie-rock these days. It ambles and trips over its feet until a few scant moments of unison singing precede a huge climax of voices intoning "now", along with some dramatic strings, a cool-down with a little wah-wah, and, I'm pretty sure, wind chimes. If this was the band's only trick, their album wouldn't be half as rewarding as it is.

Quick on the heels of the opening track's droning finale is "Under the Waves", an insistent acoustic shuffle. It builds anxiousness with quivering, barely audible strings, before throwing in a sharp guitar lead while the vocals layer and croon with confidence. The guitars interweave over some behind-the-bridge strumming while the drummer speeds up on the brushes, and the sound of the band is almost rivaled by the sound of the room itself, as if the voices and instruments vanish into blackness moments after the sound hits the air. Psuedosix includes members of other Portland bands like the Joggers, the Standard, Grails, and Dolorean, and by all indications, a collaborative group like this should sound like ramshackle Up With People handclappy bullshit; instead they sound like studio musicians here. What do they feed musicians in Portland so they get to have taste and chops?

That same open space bubbles underneath the deliberate pace and melody of "Apathy and Excess" and the lethargic shuffle of "Waisting Taking Up Space", and while "Paltry Remains" might be the moment where the vocals of mastermind Tim Perry become a bit too much to bear, it's merely a minute-long intro to one of the record's gems. "Enclave" isn't just sonically rich, but a deft modernization, with its titular concern as a creepy holdover of the long-abandoned free-love promise that the older bands paid tribute to here preached and saw evaporate. "Enclave" pines for the ideal while acknowledging its impossibility; no living situation could be as sweet as those harmonies, those gently suggestive drums, that unaccompanied guitar arpeggio that gets tripled when the whole band comes in. The result is excessive like flourless cake.

"Treacherous Ways" is nearly as strong a band performance, but falls short in much the same way as recent Bright Eyes material-- it's hard to buy the hedonistic, predatory narrator from someone who sounds like they're ready to burst into tears. The record may devolve, in points, to a game of spot-the-influence ("Fight or Flight" is "The Beach Boys one"), but it keeps one foot in tradition of the canonized greats while bringing in more conflicted, modern concerns in its lyrics. Yes, it's only a dusting off of convention, but it's amazing what a little open space can do, and how it can remind you how well those conventions worked. You may find yourself reaching for it again and again at the strangest times.