Wackiness.org Reviews Archive § Music

The main problem with this sort of group, where members of bigger-name bands create a side project to experiment with subdued guitar noodling is that, more often than not, it's completely self-indulgent and horribly dull to listen to (see also: Storm and Stress), but the Natural Dreamers, two parts Deerhoof and one part Dilute, manage to avoid that problem for the most part in their self-titled debut. The songs keep themselves reasonably short (the longest being three and a half minutes), and interesting and actually catchy enough to make for a pleasant enough listen. The connection to Deerhoof is immediately apparent - instrumental, slightly quieter Deerhoof describes the album reasonably well - but as a group, they create their own sound nicely, rather than relying too much on the similarity to their other bands' sounds. "Diamond Mines" and "The Big Switch" feature complicated but catchy riff repetition, more in the vein of Deerhoof than "Arthur" or "Hot C", which are more random and complex, but still pleasant and fun. The Natural Dreamers' debut is thoroughly enjoyable - a lack of too much variation of sound keeps it from being as excellent as it could be - but it's guaranteed to be the most fun you've had with avant-gardism in a while.

Rating

84/100

Reviewer

Noah Jackson

Published

December 01, 2003