In some ways, "The Cox Sintrific" sounds as if surveillance microphones captured the members of Stranger Lazy during a casual practice session.
Rob Freeman, Kevin Fitzpatrick, Paul Jansen and Mitch Sandalman pass instruments around, craft compact songs that sometimes clock in at two minutes and make a consistently enjoyable sound.
Yet "The Cox Sintrific" is far from amateur hour. Its lo-fi aesthetic is carefully executed, and lyrics such as "Haste makes waste; I'm sleeping all day" signal a wry intellect.
Freeman approaches singing from same lofty, lean perspective as Built to Spill vocalist Doug Martsch. One song fittingly features the word "palindromes" in its title: The music of Stranger Lazy doesn't point outward as much as it swings back and forth in reflexive delight.
For a band that's only been around since 2002, Stranger Lazy of Indianapolis has been more prolific than Dick Wolf creating "Law and Order" spin-offs. The Cox Sintrific is the band's fifth album and another one is already in the works. The question such mass production begs is: is the product any good?
For Stranger Lazy, the answer is "yes." The band thrives on the unconventional, from its original artwork to the stream-of-consciousness song titles ("Kidneystones and Palindromes") to the music itself. The sound is mostly alt-pop that is familiar but not easily placeable (for my money, I heard a lot of off-kilter influences like Guided By Voices and the Meat Puppets).
Sintrific has a four-track fuzziness to it that blurs the edges of the songs and gives the whole disc a "let's throw this thing together" quality. That actually works to Stranger Lazy's advantage, as the meandering pace of "Pictures of People Falling" and "Hello Mr. Boombox" set a musical course that invites a lot of stops for reflection.
The tone of the album is often melancholy but never negative and the band's willingness to experiment with their sound gives each song its own personality. Such originality is refreshing and welcome.
Stranger Lazy is an "Indie" band in every sense of the word -- they make quirky, anthemic, lo-fi music, they are unsigned and they are from Indianapolis! Sounding like a less-heavy Pavement or busier Pixies, Stranger Lazy specializes in putting quirky riffs together that contrast and refract one another randomly like a kaleidoscope. Stylistically, The Cox Sintrific is fairly consistent, but dynamically it is all over the place. The inventive tunes range from moody to spastic, even symphonic in spots, mixing acoustic and electric guitars and drums with whimsical keyboards and other random bursts of sound. Frequently they use a droning or repetitive instrument as a base to construct their angular creations upon. The vocals are trippy and sometimes delicate, and the lyrics are full of non-sequiturs but still very heartfelt.
All of Stranger Lazy's songs are non-linear; musical themes only last one or two minutes, and they flirt with dissonance here and there. Still, they have some strong hooks, like the vocal melodies on "And I Punched It" and "Clearing of Crows." But the main theme is that lack of repetition can be enjoyable. Expect to hear more from this little-known quartet very soon. Grade: B
It's flashback time as these young guys from Indianapolis throttle their Fender Jaguars, noodle on their cheap keyboards, and generally create the kind of slanted mid-fi indie rock that ruled the 7-inch bins (and my world) in the early-to-mid '90s. There's a kind of impetuous experimentalism to their music that I imagine rises out of Midwestern boredom as much as it comes from their musical influences (Superchunk, Built to Spill, Rob Crow, the other usual suspects). In this way they remind me of Lenola, who started out promisingly and ended up amazing, so here's hoping Stranger Lazy follow a similar trajectory.
Stranger Lazy, "The Cox Sintrific" (Indie Release) This is somewhere between Love & Rockets and Love Tractor with a little Tom Verlaine thrown in for good measure. It kind of has an early eighties alternative feel to it. Sort of like The Connells or Camper Van Beethoven without the quirky side. Hell it sounds like half my record collection during that time. It's actually quite good and extremely catchy. My favorite tracks were "And I Punched It", "3..4..5.." and the Syd Barrett styling of "Kidneystones And Palindromes".
I hate reviewing bands that nobody, and I mean nobody has heard of. It's tough because it means I have to form my own opinion. It robs me of my greatest writing aid: copying and pasting from a more capable writer's work. Considering Stranger Lazy has less Myspace "friends" linked to their page than me (and I'm not very popular), I get the feeling that no one outside of Indianapolis knows of the band. While researching the Internet for articles to plagiarize, I could only find one interview with one band member. Unfortunately, the article was about drummer Kevin Fitzpatrick's art career, and his intentions to leave the band. In the end, I had to suck it up, actually listen to the album and try to formulate an opinion on my own.
After couple of songs from The Cox Sintrific went by, an opinion sprung unbidden to my mind; "This is good." Admittedly, when the lo-fi recording and guitar reverb on the first song, "And I Punched It" began, I waited for the up-tempo drumming and screaming to begin, thinking: "Oh fuck, another fucking shitty power pop band. Fuck." But it didn't happen. The song maintained a measured, almost jaunty pace throughout. It took the beginning of the next track, "Is it Paul Water?" before relief set in. The two songs flowed into one another, picking up pace and cleaning the reverb while still maintaining a lo-fi sound.
Drowning in a sea of mediocrity, Stranger Lazy pulled me to safety one track at a time.
Listen to The Cox Sintrific and you can spot some of their influences like Built to Spill and Pavement, while managing to forge their own path. Singer Rob Freeman's vocals sound a bit like Ben Gibbard in both the style and pacing of the lyrics, but a bit more raw.
Surprisingly, there isn't a bad tune on the whole album. Some are less appealing than others, but stand-outs include "We are Vikings Tonight," with its piano overlaid on chiming guitars, as well as the choruses and upbeat plucking of an acoustic guitar on "Bang on Jesus." While The Cox Sintrific is pretty dang good, perhaps the most exciting thing about this band is the potential for greater things in the future.
In 2002 Stranger Lazy formed in Indianapolis before Peyton Manning was a spoiled brat. Never stalling out in the melody department, the band boasts a range of influences that compliments their sense of guitar-centric indie rock. You can hear the obvious like Pavement and Guided By Voices as other critics have suggested but there’s also some Neutral Milk Hotel, Modest Mouse, and maybe Sloan if you dig deep. Certainly a band that the cool college kids will covet and air non-stop on their respective radio shows and podcasts, Stranger Lazy is impressing magazines when they’re not out hunting quail or playing bocce ball.