Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Various Artists - Mews Too: An Asthmatic Kitty Compilation

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Various Artists

Mews Too: An Asthmatic Kitty Compilation

Contributor: Joel Edelman

How could I not review a compilation with the name Mews Too: An Asthmatic Kitty Compilation"? Meowza!

So it's 24 tracks of sleepy things, such as acoustic guitars and microbrewed beer. Bogs Visionary Orchestra does some fun and silly things on "Everybody's Broken." Half-Handed Cloud sounds like a Flaming Lips ripoff, only with better backing vocals, on "Bees Are Trying to Build Their Nest in You."

Bunky does "Monkey Song," which thankfully is not about the band. Actually, it is one of the better tracks on the compilation. I am bonkers for Bunky.

Maxel Toft is a clever name for a band. Jim Guthrie uses keyboards. His track, "Evil Thoughts" is kind of dark, but not necessarily depressing. The Wallflowers tracks that have keyboards sound like this, sort of.

Sam Rosen is soulful on "The Glow," if you like that sort of thing. I don't. But maybe you do! It's a free country, and Wyoming is a free state! And considering that Asthmatic Kitty is based in Wyoming, we should be lucky that any of their stuff is any good at all. I think the entire population of the state is on Asthmatic Kitty, judging by the length of this album, but I digress.

Postal City sound like They Might Be Giants, vocally. They are nowhere near as weird, sadly. I guess living in the Mountain time zome is weird enough.

Shannon Stephens sings "If You Want Me," and the jury is out whether we do. This is at least the second track so far that has banjo in it, and it's confusing me. Her voice is like a tempered Sarah McLachlan on this song, and that's fine.

What a great name for a record label. And the band's are okay, too, I guess.

You can contact the author at: jughead@agouti.com

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