It takes about five seconds from the time that you start listening to Mouthful of Bees’ sophomore album before you realize that it will be nothing like their wonderfully ramshackle garage rock debut The End. On the opening song (not counting the album’s elevator music introduction) “Mickey’s Bed,” the band starts off with a slow shuffling rhythm that sounds like one of the David Bowie covers that Seu Jorge did for The Life Aquatic. The whole production is a sea change from The End, with everything from an instrumental emphasis to simpler rhymes in the lyrics to the warmer male/female vocal harmonies falling somewhere close to the exact opposite of its predecessor. When the music breaks out near the one minute mark of “Mickey’s Bed” and lead singer Chris Farstad snarls “What you think I’m a clown? Cause I’m about to get the fuck out of town,” sounding like a younger, more direct version of David Berman. The track (like many on the album) has multiple sections that show the studio mastery that the band has either found between albums or has just finally decided to utilize. The music lacks the urgency of The End, but definitely shows a band that has multiple avenues it can follow in the future. One thing is for certain: no matter how critics and fans feel about the newer, more polished version of Mouthful of Bees, no one will say that they were afraid to try something new and different.

Mouthful of Bees “Micky’s Bed” (mp3)

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