Send "Modern Skirts " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Modern Skirts are the platonic ideal of a certain kind of college town band. You know the type: They've been described to you as "y'know, fun... kinda pop-y," odds are you know someone who made out with the drummer, and they're humbly ambitious in a way that suggests local royalty is an acceptable endpoint. At least that was true of the Athens, Ga., group on their Rooney-fied 2005 debut, Catalogue of Generous Men, a document of "O.C."-era indie rock frozen in amber, or at least the sickly yellow of Natty Lite. But whether it was due to encroaching national attention, a desire to honor the daunting musical legacy of their city, or both, 2009's All of Us in Our Night found them focusing on artistic heft rather than accessibility. They acted as if the two were mutually exclusive, and wound up with not much of either.The band's third LP, Gramahawk, is pretty much a do-over in every conceivable way. But despite surface attempts to sidle up as MGMT running mates, its sound and scope circles back toward the middle of last decade. It points to a time when Spoon-fed types like Tapes 'n Tapes, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, and Cold War Kids were lumped into a formative blog-rock vanguard that wanted to front like a movement when it was really a retreat. So if you viewed Animal Collective, lo-fi, club music, or hip-hop as serious threats to indie rock hegemony, dive into Gramahawk's treasure trove of clunky aluminum synthesizers, polite rhythms, and sturdy Modest Mouse-derived melodies. If you doubt their commitment to serviceability, dig how all 10 tracks forgo any sort of wild bender to clock in between 3:08 and 3:55. Or mock the drum machine clatter that underpins the endlessly spooling, deadpan half-raps "Happy 81" or "Under Bridges and Overpasses" at your own risk-- Cake did have a #1 album this year....full text |
| Popmatters |
| At the end of the year, it’s typical to reflect on lessons learned. Did your best friends stick up for you when you needed them most? Maybe it’s time to be less overtly nice to your boss, and pass on open bar tequila at weddings. You might think you could stand to buy a few (hundred) less records (that credit card interest won’t pay itself down). No matter how much we overanalyze and rethink the past year in music, 2010 shouldn’t have changed anyone’s opinion of Athens, Georgia, that sleeper college town ready for another crack at dominance after a lull between seismic shifts in the rock ‘n roll mantle. After all, Elephant Six’s rise was two presidents ago, and America just now has a fearless leader with an appreciation for left-of-the-dial acts. It’s difficult to see where Modern Skirts will stand in Athens’s next musical wave. Much of the tiny explosions in the blogosphere light up bands making music as if it were a night at the museum, either as uncomfortable freak-rock installations or studiously calm lectures. And then there’s Modern Skirts, who feel like new friends you meet for dinner afterward. Gramahawk is a strange beast, befitting its weird little title; an album that sometimes doesn’t know if it wants to be arty or poppy, even given the perfect position in the discography as the “experimental third album”. For Bowie acolytes who finally need to take Hunky Dory out of rotation, and Yeasayer fans who like their melodies buzzier still, here’s your platter. The music has the qualities that have come out of Athens for years since the hoards of R.E.M. imitators got real jobs: treated falsetto harmonies, polyurethane guitars, and the ever-present ghost of whimsical ‘60s pop creeping through an empty art school hallway. Gramahawk recalls Of Montreal if Kevin Barnes chose to rock out a little more—“Bridges and Overpasses” starts with mid-tempo drum thud that sounds like Phil Spector setting up shop in the Grand Canyon—but that’s only part of the lineage....full text |
| Pastemagazine |
| It’s tough to say whether they were driven to madness by one too many Ben Folds comparisons or performed some musical voodoo ritual during the four weeks they spent recording in New Orleans, but former piano-poppers Modern Skirts emerge on Gramahawk a changed band. The giddy hooks, of which the Skirts seem to have no shortage, remain intact, but for this effort, the quartet wisely mined the bizzaro bedroom recordings of lead singer Jay Gulley. The result is a lo-fi, synthy romp through DUIs (“DUI”), a love song for an ’80s one-hit wonder (“Jane Child”) and some kind of psychedelic Renaissance fair soundtrack (“To Be a Branch Davidian”) that, even when it nudges into overwrought territory, is just absurdly fun. Discordant backing vocals and drawling synths on much of the album’s second half keep Gramahawk from spinning into a sugar-high, and Gulley’s lyrics keep things interesting. One minute he’s turning a pleasant daydream about moving to the coast with a loved one into a deranged fantasy about limbs “hanging from some chains and meat hooks” (“Hitler on Wheels”). Next thing you know, he’s suggesting a first date that includes “a mariachi band and me removing your top” (“Ship Shape”). It’s a testament to the quartet’s skill in building arrangements around Gulley’s compositions that this somehow comes off more endearing than creepy. The eclectic and infectious result is an album that finds the Modern Skirts changed for the better and on their way to more good things....full text |
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