Home By Now

The debut record from Brooklyn-based indie rockers the Animators is an impressive one: Devon Copley and Alex Wong, though only a duo, achieve a rich, multi-layered sound that covers an impressive breadth of sonic and emotional range. At heart they are a power pop band, whimsical and a touch precious, and Home By Now marries these instincts to smart writing and pristine production. "Perfect World," which could easily be mistaken for a Toad the Wet Sprocket album track, exemplifies the latter with its marvelous arrangement, the song being massaged rather than overladen. "Medicine" stands out as well, capturing perfectly the feel of 1981 power pop, and "Girl #3" offers a poetic oversight of an alienating and alienated relationship in its use of astronomy as a metaphor for emotional distance. But the whimsicality fails on the self-deprecating "Better Not Say" and the borderline-condescending "Simple," which isn't the term of endearment its authors want it to be. Copley and Wang make excellent choices throughout the album in their instrumentation and production, sprinkling in unexpected elements like Gil Evans-inspired horns on "If Only" and a downright pugnacious vocal on the intelligently aggressive "Rearrange." The Animators offer a unique and inspired approach with Home By Now, evoking the Shins as filtered through Toad the Wet Sprocket's rock ambitions, and certainly worth citing as one of the better indie pop albums of the early 2000s.