Congratulations on Your Nudity EP - The Rocket

Any album that starts off with a chant-like monotone declaring, "Well, it's too early an hour to contemplate various variables, so I'll have to content myself with a smattering of whippets" amidst a collection of seemingly random sonorities is bound to get your attention. And this band has been getting a good amount of that since its move to Portland from California less than two years ago. Following in the footsteps of its Geffen debut 1st year, Me Climb Mountain, Congratulations on Your Nudity is raw, rootsy, rustic, dusty rock with a sense of humor and more than just a hint of flat-out absurdity. The mellow first half of "Lassen" is reminiscent of "Walk on the Wild Side" before it opens up into an epic-type, slowly-moving chord progression, complete with barber shop quartet harmonies for that added Beatles twist and shout. A punkish cover of Buddy Holly's classic, "Everyday," has a homegrown, Violent Femmes-ish feel and just enough British accent to mock itself. "Gardens of the World" is all innocent simplicity, practically begging for radio play. "Driving Like Jehu" twists your brain with its atonal chord layering, swanky verses and out-of-time harmonies before bashing through an ending that'll have everyone singing along. "Let it die, let it die, let it die!" A bit less encyclopedic in his approach to writing lyrics this time around, a line from "Oil Slick" exemplifies singer/lyricist Sean Harrasser's infatuation with nature and the great outdoors: "The Texas sky is wide/It gives you too much time to think about the trees of mystery." Don't take Harvester too seriously, but don't laugh too hard either. In the words of a great British philosopher, "There's a fine line between clever and stupid." It is on this fine line that Harvester ever so tenuously teeter.

-Carlos Marcelin