B.F.F.

Album Review

Seattle trio the Pharmacy are so much the stereotypical hipster indie rockers that it's not hard to imagine that perhaps the whole thing is some kind of deadpan put-on. From their overall Look — beards, unkempt hair, and cutesy t-shirts on-stage, homemade D.I.Y. photo collage on their record covers — to the fractured, studiedly manic delivery of their faux-naif two-minute blasts of punky noise to the cheap irony of the album title (not to mention the apparently so-unhip-it's-cool name of their label), there are several elements of their debut album that could be just plain irritating in other hands, and even here, they're on notice. What saves B.F.F. is the regular flash of actual songwriting smarts on tracks like the danceable, almost poppy "Prince" and agreeable slices of noise-pop like "Stop Your Complaining," not to mention the goofy humor of songs like "Anthrax (Kimya Dawson)," a shaggy dog story about an incident that happened while the Pharmacy was on tour with the former Moldy Peaches singer. There are drawbacks — nearly inaudible opening track "Fedex Planes" takes the concept of lo-fi far too literally — and too many songs are just brief blurts of guitar and keyboard noise with goofy faux-surreal lyrics, but there is enough rough-edged charm to make B.F.F. worth a listen to those on the Pharmacy's anti-slickness bandwagon.