Pinback is a difficult band to categorize. The San Diego duo’s instrumental textures often feel as emotionally weighty as a movie score, like Explosions in the Sky minus the grandiose noise-hurricanes, or Death Cab for Cutie’s early albums. But its intricate arrangements and occasional pop curveball (the O.C. compilation fave “Fortress”) skew it closer to electro-math-rockers Minus the Bear, and even the Police, if Sting had, say, attended college in the Midwest and was a huge math-rock geek.
The latter two bands especially spring to mind when listening to the fantastic Autumn of the Seraphs. Much more vibrant than 2004’s Summer in Abaddon, Seraphs relies less on atmospherics and more on lively guitar textures and cascading harmonies. Opening track “From Nothing to Nowhere” careens like a race car just on the edge of crashing, thanks to a whirlygig tempo and electrified riffs; “Blue Harvest,” too, marches forward defiantly, like power-pop coated in grit rather than gloss. But all of Seraphs’ small pleasures need multiple spins to fully appreciate, mostly because Pinback members Zach Smith and Rob Crow create such dense music. Only close listens reveal the album’s subtle genius: the thick bassline digging through “Barnes” or the criss-crossing delicate croons driving “Good to Sea.”
PINBACK
Autumn of the Seraphs
*** 1/2