SHADOWY MEN ON A SHADOWY PLANET: Dim The Lights, Chill The Ham
An album of noisy instrumentals, influenced by detective films, late night drives, '70s variety shows, and several great guitarists. "Running Meredith" features a cheesy toy organ sound with occasional heavy feedback and some tempo changes. The song "5 American 6 Canadian" rips off "Brazil." Occasionally, there are vocals, but mostly the music covers that tremulous, whammy-bar, single-string guitar sound. It's competent, more diverse that I'm making it out to be - though considering that there's 23 tracks, it's not that diverse - and it's enjoyable. Shadowy Men invent nothing, shed no new light on anything, and aren't particularly moving. But it's fun, and sometimes that's enough.
- Robert Gordon