Sound Team Albums (3)
What The Critics Say
The Austin sextet Sound Team are quite adept at hijacking various indie rock and pop sounds of the last few years and sometimes even further back. From Sonic Youth, the New Pornographers, Spoon, and Interpol to Silver Apples, Can, and shoegazers like Ride, they cover a lot of bases in 11 tracks. Most bands that sound like a chopped and blended soup of influences fail because they have no songwriting skills or nothing of their own to contribute, but Sound Team succeed because they have large amounts of both of those things. Songs like the Vancouver-poppy "No More Birthdays," the hazy "Afterglow Years," and the trance-punk jam "Handful of Billions" have hooks big enough to render influences irrelevant. Even the songs that aren't immediately imprinted on your brain prove to be nothing less than entertaining due to the amount of energy the bandmembers put into their performances -- especially the vocals, which range from impassioned to totally impassioned. You may be put off by their bland name and lack of image, but to pass them by would mean denying yourself some fine major-label indie rock. ~ Tim Sendra, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The second release from Austin's Sound Team, Into the Lens, borrows a page from the foundational sounds of the psychedelic popsters of the 1960s and the contemporary Elephant 6 artists to create a sprawling 22-song set of varied and challenging indie pop songwriting. Less hit-or-miss than their debut, shades of the more twisted Beach Boys recordings and the burned-out country-rock of the Beachwood Sparks help fill out the almost epic feel of the disc, as it shifts from jaunty fairytale sounds to cryptic faux-hillbilly creepiness. Dreamily fading and melting into each other, the set alternates between wild freak-out boogies and more pastoral elements, but is always rooted in a tunefully fuzzy aesthetic. Further, whether channeling the Olivia Tremor Control ("Don't Imbibe the T.V.") or the Velvet Underground ("LaMont Young"), the band manages to emerge with a sound that although undeniably derivative, still allows some of their unique personality to shine through. Still, even as the disc meanders slightly over 20 tracks in length, with many simply being reprises of songs appearing earlier in the set, the repetition ultimately makes the album seem strangely familiar and resonant after only a few listens. All in all, an impressive second step for Sound Team. ~ Matt Fink, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Laying countrified arrangements over a proliferation of old school hip-hop beats, the debut of Austin, TX-based Sound Team finds parallels with early Beck recordings, both for the melding of disparate styles and for the quirky pop culture references. Similarly hit or miss as well, the band nonetheless manages to carve out a fairly unique niche over 19 tracks. While the vocals seem to be delivered in a somewhat mocking fashion, full of lazy Southern drawl and none-too-sweet tenor harmonies, one shouldn't interpret the apparent irreverence as a lack of sincerity. Authentic Delta blues slide guitar colors the faux gospel of "Help Me Lord," with hammered dulcimer and African drums turning up in "Song From a Dream," proving the bandmembers to be eclectically talented, if not entirely serious, artists. A few songs do seem to fall into a distracting clutter, with a complex patchwork of scratching and sampling sometimes stealing attention from the group's more interesting quirks. Suffering little for choosing a more conventional route, the dusty "Jones Street Blues" brings to mind Exile on Main Street-era Rolling Stones, just as the quieting acoustic guitar and electric piano of "Papertrails" finds an unexpected delicacy. Further, the dazed vocals and fluttering synths of "Pure Imagination" could almost be mistaken for an Olivia Tremor Control outtake. Also of note are slightly skewed covers of standards like "Baby Please Don't Go" and "I Saw the Light," the later adding the words "meditated and fasted to Yahweh's delight" to rhyme with "praise the Lord, I saw the light." So, even if the vocals are a little too loud in the mix, and many songs would be better served by being about half a minute shorter, Sound Team has certainly taken an entertaining first step. ~ Matt Fink, All Music Guide
