:: Track Listing

1. Target
2. Chance
3. Air [mp3]
4. Brian Boleman Is A Pussy
5. Robots
6. Lose
7. Rice [mp3]
8. Sidewalk
9. Film
10. Junkyard
11. Get The Nurse
12. Summer Heads
13. Satellites
14. Suburbs

:: Record Review

The Rhombus

Margins
(Self-released; 2006)

Rating: 72%
Combined Rating: 73%


Navigating between generous intimacy and sterile disaffection, the Rhombus buys a bouquet of Lilies of the Valley to demurely ask the listener to the Dance, only to quietly confer later with other geometric friends behind the dumpster outside the Gym about plans to bust the listener’s hymen. The dichotomy is jarring; Margins, it seems, could be a trap, a disingenuous ploy, as smarmy as it is ingratiating. Something unsettling occurs in the transition from such dainty lyricisms as, “The ozone will buckle and reveal / That Space is paisley and that darkness is not real” (“Air”), to dubious hulks like, “Our delirium’s final blow / Weeping boners and guys named Beau / And the robots are trying to hump us now / The robots are trying to hump us” (“Robots”); there’s something slippery about mentioning mundane blasphemy (“Lose”) before ruminating on a saddening loss of belief (“Rice”). Even the gothic keyboard parting the sea of static smegma at the end of “Sidewalk’s” fury warrants distaste in the song’s initial two minutes.

But, for all the needling whiplash, I’ve come to value Cody Hennesy’s unnerving arrangements. Bupkes, the Rhombus’ 2004 — ignored and undervalued — debut, while simultaneously experimental and restrained, remains an anomaly of bedroom pop/folk, chaffed against both a playroom’s woolen carpet and an emerald sidewalk. That record, still a quiet gem two years later, never found an identity, and, as such a vague term implies, it lost its wind two-thirds through, blustering around brilliant pockets of melody or divulging in messy soundscapes that never completely fit the album’s overall tone. Instead, Margins, despite numerous contributions from multi-instrumentalist Zach Lint, Roommate Kent Lambert, drummer Brian Boleman, and many other West Coast quirks, maintains clear intent: gorgeous harmonies never interfere with seething, rote experimentation, and vice versa, but instead butt up against each other. As such, the whole works into a vulgar flow able to carry a thematic breadth never realized in the debut. Margins, while not overtly nostalgic, enjoys the stagnant elegy of “a trip to target” or a “sunburned arm” as much as casual/dirty paranoia about automatons, and in this incomprehensible limbo between dread and contentment, between the condoned carelessness of childhood and the tabooed carelessness of adulthood, “normal” life is emulated. Admittedly, this blue collar attachment to people of the “margins” is nothing new, especially in DIY pop, but the Rhombus approaches his grey themes as an impetus for the music, (opposite-dayingly) delineating dynamics in gaudy swipes.

As is fitting of our exponentially maturing digital society, Margins rarely hits a bad note production-wise; Hennesy’s soapy voice sounds full, from the stomach, and there’s rarely an excess of pans, flourishes, or extraneous, orbital clicks throughout the widely divergent fourteen tracks. In fact, an intense focus on vocal melody makes for the most satisfying songs the Rhombus has penned yet. “Target” reflects slowly on the many sonic permutations of the phrase “you know I’ll try,” aiding the sentiment with thin acoustic guitar and steady cymbal crashing, the harmonies (all Hennesy) eventually emptying into blank space and slyly giving credit to the man’s strengthening throat cords. “Rice” is mostly bounce and melodica bridge, the centerpiece Hennesy’s flurried, hushed interplay with a more conversational version of himself. Then there’s “Air,” best on the album easily, best for lyrics, best for permeable synth, best for catchy chorus where Hennesy really climbs the tor of his voice, but best for harmony, incessant and rolling, the voices together but not formally, connected, perhaps, atavistically. Yet, the song suddenly cracks in half and hail pours out of the clouds, thudding and sizzling, carving fissures in the earth. And again, we are reminded that no simple idea is safe. The Rhombus shall have the final, surprising say.

Unfortunately, no song on Margins can compete with the manic excitement of, say, “Reflections Of A Charbroiled Whiz-Kid,” or the electro-melancholia of “Vanya,” both Bupkes highlights. And, unfortunately, instrumentals “Brian Boleman Is A Pussy” and “Get The Nurse,” pretty, calm enough, never stretch further than whimsy. ‘N dammit, can’t help but mourn “Sidewalk” and “Robots” for sound effect saturation. “Summer Heads,” I’d venture, serves as proxy enough for these previously mentioned flabby tracks; a banjo, charbilly snaps, and perfectly placed bass pulse balance intuitively inside accessible proportions.

So, Margins is catchier and substantially more honed, but not as engaging, as the last. Straight up: I’m not prone to so thoroughly comparing an artist’s first and second records, but the Rhombus presents a tricky progression: ostensibly better arranged, more melodically focused, and lyrically pared to create more mature imagery and discuss more complicated concepts than Bupkes, this sophomore album absorbs the stilted problems of the same “maturity”: replay values depreciate, but consistency glistens: ya know, straight up. Guess there’s the grey. Good enough place for it. Dom Sinacola :: 11 May 2006 |