Time Wants a Skeleton

Cleveland's genre-hopping Infinite Number of Sounds are a treat. Never content to settle into a single sound or vibe, they mark their own territory in the post-rock terrain with their debut album, Time Wants a Skeleton. Never deciding if they want to be a live rock band or laptop experimentalists, they meld the two approaches into an enjoyable, if slightly derivative musical experience. INS can be compared most easily to a more aggressive version of Chicago's Tortoise, most explicitly on "Exorcise w/o Air," which sounds more like a cover of that band's oeuvre than it does an original composition. But then there are tracks like "Tiny Spiders in My Hair," which mates a piano line reminiscent of John Carpenter's film scores to industrial percussion, dub guitar, and screaming metal vocals. It's a bit schizophrenic for just one track, and it's indicative of the entire record. There's just too much of a good thing on display here, which stops the record from being truly great. And that is disappointing, because this is a good record, and with its unexpected twists that impart an anxious "what am I going to hear next" vibe, it's fun to listen to. Fans of the post-rock genre will get a couple of thrills out of this record.