Everything about this album, from the band’s name to the vaguely Talking Heads-ish artwork to the title, suggests snobbishly arty postmodern pop – but the Mood’s Synaesthesia is actually a breezy six-song chunk of good old-fashioned power pop, with tracks such as “Eskimo Scientist” aimed right at the pleasure centers of music fans who still fondly reminisce about bygone groups like Gladhands or Summercamp. Of course, this stuff never sells worth a damn, so the EP is destined to whisper quickly into dust-covered obscurity, only to be pored over by pop nerds years from now…like, say, Gladhands’ La Di Da. Nothing here approaches the classic greatness of that album, but it’s cut from mostly the same cloth, and so few bands are doing this sort of thing anymore that it’s hard not to snap your fingers and bob along. Too short to wear out its welcome and too catchy to resist, Synaesthesia offers up a perfectly serviceable soundtrack to brief end-of-summer barbecues. If there’s a real knock against the EP, it’s that the material is good, but never great — with a few truly stellar songs, who knows what they could do? (Outright Rock 2008)
