Portland, Oregon duo Reptaliens are saddled with a name that suggests dimestore sci-fi, and an outlook that seems overly fascinated by drugs, but they make good music. The newest album from these two, Multiverse, is out on Captured Tracks this Friday and it's a fairly buoyant affair.
Opener "I Feel Fine" is a delight. A soaring cut that recalls synth-pop from ages past, it's a great single. Elsewhere, the material rides bouncy bass-lines and spry guitar inflections to a place that's fairly original, while beholden to the stuff you listened to in the Clinton years. "In Your Backyard" is held together around Bambi Cole's breathy, Julie Cruise-inspired vocals, even as the layered axes suggest a faint debt owed to Robin Guthrie and Simon Raymonde. There's a real lightness here, and it's easy to get too hung up on the concepts behind this record, which at times feels like a concept album based around our visions of the future. Whatever. The pop here is supple enough that the tunes stand on their own, with a few hooks here that are positively rapturous in spots, like on the Sugarcubes-ish "Take It", a real highlight of this record.
Multiverse is out on Friday via Captured Tracks.
[Photo: Captured Tracks]