In spite of myself, I like the new one from Floatie. The Chicago-based band's new record, Voyage Out, is out today via Exploding in Sound, and it's an infectious offering. A uniformly bright blending of math rock and post-punk, the music here bounces with an inventiveness that's frankly charming.
"Shiny" and "Water Recipe" find interlocking figures from the guitar and bass working against a muted beat, while the vocals sort of drift over the melodic line. The result is this odd sort of faintly proggy stuff, material that's light but which has the percussive pop of something from D.C. or Chicago ('natch) in the late Nineties. "In the Night" pushes things in a new direction as the chords here are rather choppy and guitar-figures scratchier.
All of Voyage Out skips ahead with a real bounce, and with a vigor that's sort of refreshing. A youthful band, Floatie at least make the familiar feel fresh, considering how some of this mines a similar vein. Sure, "The Envoy" is a tiny bit harder, but it is, like most of this brief release, a workout in the style of what's come before it on the album. Floatie do this very well, almost enough so that this is all still super engaging.
Voyage Out is out today via Exploding in Sound.
[Photo: Ash Dye]