By Andrew Flanagan

It could just be my birth-decade nostalgia talking, but these guys are a catchy thing. They’ve carved out a definable sound, consisting of an early-aughts indie songwriting approach in satellite around 80’s timbre, trembling drum machines, and a digressive groove one-footed in funk. They put to good use the always-great Afterburner guitar tone; all compressed flange distort coupled with dance rhythms.

What we’ve got here is scratchy lo-fi rising to a bombast straight of out Silverhawks. Petulant pubescent-register vocal sing-hollering with lyrics leaning towards barely serious – maybe barely joking – admonishments of our staid culture, keeping the background busy and steady with a stream of electronic piany ambience and drum machine step-steps, pushing the songs forward until jumping into the forefront. And rarely does a drum machine fit a band so well.

When I heard this record, I not-so-immediately thought of the defunct Hockey Night (1:04 of “Accountability” mayhap?) and the long ago Tapes ‘n Tapes demo, and lo, from a Pulse review of their old band: “If you listen to our record, all of our major influences at this point are people that we know personally,” says Huestler [not in Military Special], “like Hockey Night and Malachi Constant.” Those influences are still present here, except more pronounced for being telescopically further from the sources.

Who the fuck cares? Coming from their old band Look Down, who released a record on Afternoon, home to many local shiners, these guys apparently decided to go for funny-bone bittersweet hits and tongue-in-cheekiness. And it worked. Military Special are their own beast, and I imagine are destined for attention. For all the worries and tryings that occur in the pursuit of rocking, Military Special apparently worried more about defining their sound than bringing the noise, which was broughten regardless.

www.myspace.com/militaryspecial

Filed under: Music Reviews