Lazycain

(Big Wheel)
by Tim Den

Complex music that pays off with multiple listens, Five Days Eighty Hours provides labyrinth-like instrumentation that often overwhelms and surprises. As the listener receives new rewards each time this disc spins, the final feeling is quite empty. This is probably because the mathematical music, even with its intelligent arrangements, offers only outside beauty and no inner strength. Opener “Last Song About Hate,” for example, matches a catchy guitar line with overlapping notes that sound great, but overall has no substance to it. The vocals are weak, the song structures loose, and the tunes not very powerful. Granted, props must be given to an indie rock band that embraces intelligent composition (and strictly composition) over half-assed chords, but there is no escaping the truth that more development needs to occur in the area of heart-and-soul.
(325 Huntington Ave. #24 Boston, MA 02115)