My Ears Are Ringing but My Heart's Ok

Captain Audio began their life as a bare-bones guitar-drum duo, but by the time they recorded this debut EP, Regina Chellew and Josh Garza had added bassist/keyboardist Brandon Curtis, and they had existed as a legit power trio for about half a year. And power is one immediately relevant word for describing the band. Despite a couple of parts that still sound clunky, there is little evidence of a band still finding their sound. Instead My Ears Are Ringing Buy My Heart's OK bursts forth like the work of an assured band that started fully formed, as they blast through six propulsive, skewered songs faster than you can say 'futuristic pop.' The matter-of-fact instrumental "Put That Sweater On" opens the album loaded down with feedback. Angular, electronically processed noise is used throughout the album in this way by the band, and the result is music so thoroughly modern that it sounds like tomorrow. The songwriting is ambitious and edgy. Sonic textures are stratospherically juxtaposed and stop-on-a-dime, jump-cut parts veer from sharp deconstruction to floating melodicism. It pulls the legacy of Phil Spector's Wall of Sound — the sound of a whole roomful of bulging, rumbling sounds spilled out at the same time — into a completely electric realm, but is even more evocative of Joe Meek if he were producing a jazz band. "Often Mistaken for the Sun" could almost be called free-jazz, with wild saxophone runs emanating out of an apocalyptic soundscape of agitated drums and eerily phased, atmospheric guitar sounds. It is freakish gem that impels you into its chaos because it is such a thrilling, cosmic din. But beneath it all, Captain Audio has a penchant for fabulous, time honored tunes. The next and final cut, "Know It All," turns the same instrumentation on its side and points out what ultimately makes My Ears Are Ringing so appealing. If you peel back the layers of cavernous noise, there is a song that could have sprung from the basement of the Band's Big Pink house just as easily as it could have tumbled down from space.