Written by Bryon Dudley   

Friday, 08 May 2009

You take one look at Cirrus Minor’s album cover art, and you can tell they’re not afraid to wear their psychedelia proudly on their sleeves.  The cover features a close-up of an eye, the blazing blue iris looking almost like lightning or flames.  This is a good image to prep you for the journey you take on the debut album from the Des Moines band.

 

There’s a nice welcoming of trippy, faded-in delay guitars on the disc opener “From the Sky,” joined by some rolling bass and drum work by Aaron “Ogre” Lea and MacKenzie Fleener.  From there a lot of interesting grooves pepper the album, showcasing stop-start rhythms that are on the nu-metal side of King Crimson at times and, more often, Primus.

With just this going for them, Cirrus Minor could’ve ended up sounding like a thousand other bands, but instead they’ve experimented, and it is here where they really succeed.  Synthesizers add splashes of the epic on the standout title track, which is the lone instrumental on the album.  There’s also bits of backwards-sounding bass, and some nice growls and swirls.  The track has compositional movements, and gets downright prog-rock in places.

The reggae pot anthem “No Sens” has steel drum sounds in it, and has probably the catchiest chorus of all the songs.  There’s also some great lead guitar playing in it by singer/guitarist Mike Ruby.  “Don’t Tase Me, Bro” is more of a catchy porchstomper (even including harmonica, by keyboardist Rich Cantrell).  In true pop tradition, it comes in at under four minutes – most of the songs are over the six minute mark, allowing the band to build drama.

The mix of serious and fun on the album works – you get the hard driving crunch sometimes, and you get the campfire sing-along and partying other times.  It’s like some Bob Marley fans found themselves listening to Tool and Pink Floyd a lot, and couldn’t choose between them when putting the band together.  So they didn’t, and why should anyone have to?

And as a parting rhythmic gift, the live closer, a cover of Michael Franti’s “Pray for Grace,” features hip-hop Franti friend Radioactive, beat boxing away with Cirrus Minor’s groove unit.  It showcases the band’s “live” potential, which sounds like a fun show.