The sticker affixed to promo copies of Blind Pilot’s Three Rounds and a Sound promises “something like a wistful mix of the Shins with a bit of Iron & Wine folkishness,” and that isn’t just idle hipster-baiting – if the Shins and Iron & Wine had a baby, it might sound a lot like these 11 songs. If it did, though, it wouldn’t be a particularly gifted child. This is not to say that Blind Pilot rides the short bus of melancholy, folk-tinged indie popsters – just that there isn’t anything particularly moving or profound about this album. It hits all the cues it’s supposed to, right down to the smudged pastels in the cover artwork, but if you’ve ever spent any time listening to any (or, God help you, all) of the bands that sound like this, there isn’t a single bit of Three Rounds that you haven’t already heard someplace else. Of course, there really isn’t anything new under the sun, and if you’re going to be slavishly imitative, you could do a lot worse than tearing pages out of this particular playbook. Great for background music, and fine for those who enjoy puzzling over lyrical non sequiturs (“I buried a bone / And darling, you don’t know him / Just where you are might be the right place”), but this little patch of ground is starting to yield withered crops. Next time out, some sharper material could work wonders. (Expunged 2008)
