If it weren't for the unassuming, little-boy-lost quality in
Eliot Krimsky
's singing, it would be tempting to call
"Idol Omen"
art rock. Certainly there's a touch of mid-'70s
Eno
in Brooklyn-based duo
Glass Ghost
's debut at times, but things never boil over to the melodramatic level of
Destroyer
's
Bowie
-gone-indie-rock approach. Singer/keyboardist
Krimsky
and drummer
Mike Johnson
played together in a couple of bands, including
Flying
, before splintering off into the duo format, and the seamlessness with which their parts interlock suggests a tall stack of shared sonic experiences. Maybe that's what enables them to slip so suddenly and subtly from one tempo, dynamic, or meter to another as they seem to do at will, on songs whose inner logic seems to owe more to whatever's floating around
's head at any given moment than to anything you could tie down to a genre tag. At the same time,
Idol Omen
is consistently accessible throughout. Flashes of R&B and even hip-hop pop up in the grooves, and there's a distinct post-
Postal Service
synth pop feel to some of the tunes. It's just that the unpredictable muse of
leaves the listener uncertain what to expect next at any point, which is always a good thing. The mood for much of the album is a mellow, muted one, but even that lends the proceedings a winning openness and a sense of endless possibility -- the pensive quality of these songs makes it seem like they could be inserted into the soundtrack of any scene in a movie -- romantic, funny, sad -- and still be equally appropriate. At eight songs that add up to a little over a half-hour, the only thing one wants after to listening to
is a couple more songs. ~ J. Allen