Car Alarm is, believe it or not, the eighth full-length release by this Chicago postmodern post-pop quartet. The album is once again recorded by drummer John McEntire and comes in a pretty, hot-pink package. The disc is a requiem for the dead-end of summer — Chicago folk can certainly understand the harsh reality of winter’s onset.
It starts out strong with the catchy, breezy “Aerial,” with that song’s melodic guitar outro butting up against the steel drum peppered “Fuller Moon,” but Car Alarm runs out of gas fairly quickly after that. There’s plenty of the peppy guitar interplay you’d expect, but Sam Prekop’s breathy vocals grow tiresome, and texture and style seem to win out over substance and songs. It doesn’t help that the band’s label hypes them as if they were on par with heavy hitters like Charles Mingus, John Coltrane and The Minutemen — the hyperbole simply sets expectations too high.
A lot of the album seems to just coast along, more like a joyride than a journey. The steel drums return for the instrumental “Mirrors,” which is darn pretty, but that, unfortunately, is the end of the album. While Car Alarm may get diehard S&C fans running excitedly into the street, everyone else will likely just tune it out.
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