Sensations: “Listen to My Shapes”

Filed under: Music Reviews   

(Camera Records)

The funny thing about these guys is how they advertise themselves as a 60s band - a Kinks, Byrds, Simon and Garfunkel when the mood hits - and it’s actually true. Certainly all the Spacemen 3 worshippers who survived the Brian Jonestown Massacre would find a few songs - “My Big Fame” leaps immediately to the fore - mortally relevant were they put forth as advance singles of a Big Something about to happen, and bands like the Lilys would most likely begin flogging their ProTools for more and weirder output in panicked response. But the Sensations aren’t just hoping their moniker gets the Bowery Ballroom bloggers all panties-abunched; it appears they may have actually come across a certified antique collection of records which now dictates their every move. Above all they’re into Abbey Road-era Beatles, if songs like “Incredible Man” and “Slow to Show” are even the blurriest windows into their marvelously naïve psyches, and “My Big Fame” is George Harrison-inspired any way it’s sliced. The Simon and Garfunkel shtick comes into play upon “Winds of Emotion,” but along with its unplugged obeisance come a few lines that channel the Chili Peppers when they were in their pre-oldness jackanapes phase.

Posted on April 5th, 2007.

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