Hailing from Minneapolis, Time Room are a post punk outfit who use frantically changing time signatures, a brash and bright guitar sound, and sense of carefree immediacy to create wonderfully playful rock music. Their latest album "Something New" has a stylistic cohesion across its eight tracks. Blending garage rock with a more pop-punk melodic style, Time Room garnish their songs with a generous helping of distorted psychedelia. Songs like "No 1" and "Freeway" take the best parts of these elements and run with them, not wasting any time in the process. Other cuts like "Bleep Bloop" and "Snowed In" get more jangly and experimental, in the vein of Half Man, Half Biscuit, as they bounce along.
The liner notes explain that the music was recorded in a studio while the vocals were recorded at the drummer's house. This can be heard in the incongruous quality of the aforementioned music and vocals. Where the music is clean and punchy, the vocals sound under-the-blanket muddled, and with a dash of reverb, sit nicely and naturally under the music. While none of the other tracks quite live up to the brutal ingenuity of opener "Something New", by the time you reach the closing track "Projector", the band have charmed you enough with their rough and ready approach that you're ready to start over again.
★★★
Reviewed by Jay Honeycomb on May 10th 2022
Rating: 3