I take vacation twice in the summer. Once at the beginning, around Fourth of July, usually just me. Then, again as the summer winds down and CoolDaughters 1 & 2 are on their two-week break from camp before school starts. This week we're staying around the lovely Jersey Shore to take advantage of all the stuff we've been too busy to do all summer. It'll be a week of beach, theme parks, and the end of summer Fair Haven Firemen's Fair.
Since this is going to be a New Jersey-themed week, I thought I'd take a New Jersey band with me to the beach on Saturday and for my run last evening. The Ugly Club are a five-piece based out of Union County, NJ. I'd been hearing a lot about their debut, You Belong to the Minutes, so I decided to give it a try.
Album opener and lead single, "David Foster Wallace," with its arrangement and Ryan Egan's vocals, immediately evokes some of the more soulful numbers from Spoon. And, of course, I find its title immediately appealing. From there, the band moves through a variety of sounds. Taylor Mandel's keyboards and piano usually feature prominently. There's the polished, epic Coldplay-like pop of "Under the Great Wave." The Spoon influence is present again on "Loosen Up," but then that track closes with a funk jam that wouldn't seem out of place at a live show in a small club. The first half of "Let's Sleep Around" features Egan doing an impressive falsetto and moves into the most straight-ahead pop rock on the album in its second half. The title track closes the album with six minutes of an almost motorik beat (think Wilco's "Spiders (Kidsmoke)") and some distorted guitar jamming.
For me, the word that kept popping into my head as I listened to You Belong to the Minutes was "polish." The Ugly Club have a distinctive sound that combines mindie-pop, funk, and jazz in a very well put together package. If you've read this blog for any length of time, then you probably know that I enjoy a little more edge or roughness. That edge is on You Belong to the Minutes in several spots like "David Foster Wallace," "Loosen Up," and the last minute or so of "Unraveling You." Those are the parts of the record that really work best for me. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy the rest of the album. The musicianship and the songwriting on You Belong to the Minutes make the whole record a worthwhile listen.
I can see The Ugly Club's sound taking them very far. Their sound combines a wide-ranging appeal with an intelligence that big-time popular music could really use right now. I may be sticking around New Jersey for a little while, but I don't think The Ugly Club will be hanging around just New Jersey for too much longer.
You Belong to the Minutes came out in July and is available as a $1+ download from The Ugly Club's Bandcamp site.
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