Dandelion Gum

Album Review

Over the course of the last couple years and two albums (plus a stunning collaboration with the Octopus Project in 2006 on The House of Apples and Eyeballs), Black Moth Super Rainbow has constructed a unique and impressive sound that takes the best elements of bedroom techno, DayGlo indie pop, and anything-goes maximum pop and rolls them up into a glittering ball of melody and invention. Most all of their songs are built on a tipsy foundation of lo-fi drums, bass, and the occasional guitar, then plastered over by all manner of tinny junk-shop synths and topped by vocals fed through the cheapest sounding vocoder on earth. Dandelion Gum is the perfection of that sound; each song is a perfectly crafted chunk of organic synth pop insanity. Sometimes a group with such an interesting and individual sound skimps on the actual songs, but BMSR doesn't, as tracks like "Roller Disco," "The Afternoon Turns Pink," "Wall of Gum," and "Spinning Cotton Candy in a Shack Made of Shingles" have the kind of child-like melodies that will nag you gleefully for days. Even when the melodies don't grab you, something about the song will, whether it's the dub-like shifting of tones or the sheer joy the band transmits through the speakers. While for the most part the album lives up to the title and exudes sweet and sticky happiness, some melancholy creeps in on songs like the very Air-y "Sun Lips" or the slightly creepy "Lost, Picking Flowers in the Woods." Apparently the album is based on a concept of candy-making witches who inhabit a forest and lure hapless locals to their doom with their sweets, so it works to have a well-rounded, fully realized, and varied batch of songs to fit the concept. As awesome as it would be to have a full-length album of all toothache-inducing sweetness and light, it might get tired after a while. And your teeth might fall out too. How could you chew your Dandelion Gum then?