The Lovely Feathers - Hind Hind Legs

One-two stepping between the slow eccentricity of Modest Mouse and the enthusiastic backbeats of OK Go, The Lovely Feathers make for one hell of a dazzling peacock. Let them preen; let them gloat. Perched atop a throne of nonsense lyrics, carried by an always-warbling pitch, and squawked in an often-breathy daze, their CD, “Hind Hind Legs,” doesn’t have a dull moment. This is a dazzlingly silly band, but their feathers aren’t the only lovely things about them. With Mark Kupfert and Richard Yanofsky doubled on guitars and vocals, they can lay down a solid beat and lyric, like in “Mildly Decorated,” and then embellish it with divergent strumming or choral emphasis. Add in Noah Bernamoff’s steady bass, Ted Suss’s solid drums, and Daniel Suss’s ethereal keyboard and you can go anywhere: often in the same song. “I Really Like You,” splits between a really vanilla love song and wanting to be part of the Rocky Horror soundtrack, and the performances are what hold it together. There’s also a lot of range on this album—the novelty of their act isn’t restricted to their lyrics. Hits like “Frantic” sop together a soupcon of punk with an underscore of pop, while the rest of the band plucks away like a mad banjoist and uses the keyboard like a xylophone. Aside from the sheer variety, The Lovely Feathers has a sick spread of hooks, deliciously ludicrous nuggets of easily repeatable lyrics. The opening track, “Pope John Paul,” doesn’t actually have a chorus, but all the bits and pieces seem so logically entertaining that you’ll want to sing along without even knowing the words. That’s what vibrant pop songs like “In The Valley” do, and surprisingly, that’s what the slower, deeper songs on the album accomplish, too. Not to say that there aren’t flaws: the lead guitar is sometimes annoyingly shrill, the punk sections occasionally overwhelm the balance of the whole act, and some of the instrumental bridges aren’t very fulfilling. These are such small blemishes on a wonderful debut—momentary lapses rather than an illustration of a deeper flaw—that I can’t help being completely enamored with The Lovely Feathers. Flattery may get you nowhere, but playfulness is pretty much the whole game. [ www.thelovelyfeathers.com]