February 6 - 13, 1 9 9 7
[Music Reviews]
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***1/2 Flexie

GALAXY PARK

(Surreal EP)

Flexie here combine the moody lyricism of early 'Til Tuesday/recent Aimee Mann with the electronic noise of Tribe. In "Everybody," guitarist Richard Marr's orchestral effects and versatile repertoire of short licks lead drummer Chris Willett and bassist Brett Fasullo through intricate shifts among progressive rock drama, Lush-like raves, and jazz bridges that feature the band playing around the rhythm. Trilling and swooping through keys, the trippy vocalizations of Ellie Volckhausen and Rosie Huntress in "Kites" slide across the melody as they whirl through a carnival of isolated images: "A walkway brick/A thorny prick/I meet images/Of all your visages/I adore." Marr's melodramatic wow owes something to another Marr's Mersey sound, but the shrill close harmonies Volckhausen and Huntress pull off and the conservatory training evident in the rhythm section gets you fired up for an original sound in the wound-up rock of "Rattlesnake" and the folksy punk of "Charms." Let's hope that a major label doesn't smooth out the rough edges.

-- Craig Thorn

(Flexie play Mama Kin tonight, February 6, and the Middle East on Thursday February 20.)


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