Snack Truck

Spacial Findings 1-7 (2009)

Brian Shultz

So much about Snack Truck's Spacial Findings 1-7 is just misleading. First off, I keep reading it as "special findings." Clever, dudes. Second, the thing's got eight songs, not seven. Quit it!

Further, the pithy, flailing moments of guitars and percussion on "Presence Charm," the opening track, sound like they're about to give way to a frothing, raw-produced screamo jawn, but it's not the case at all. "Blooms (Horrible)" opens with a guitar riff straight out of the early Mock Orange playbook (which in turn itself was probably lifted from Cap'n Jazz or something, but whatever, you get my point), but do we get a scrappy, poppy, playful, '90s emo jam? Nope! Goddamnit! It's really an instrumental procession with tightly focused, interlocking guitars--can't tell if there are two guitar tracks or not, but it sounds cool and strongly centered regardless--and dual percussion; it's what you could very vaguely categorize as the style of math rock played in restrained portions by Don Caballero and others I'm not well-versed enough to try and think of or compare to.

"Blooms (Sweet)" gets to the point a little sooner, but adds a certain upbeat, oddly mystifying atmosphere to things you don't quite hear with this style. "Life Prism" has the most interesting guitar work, though, with some weird tones I'd be able to specify if I played guitar and consequently had a whole rack of awesome effects pedals. Its stop-starts, sudden tempo changes and very focused, pensive explosion help solidify it as probably this album's best. There's that sort of chaos-in-arrest vibe for "Blake Jones in Space," and that's always pleasing.

Spacial Findings loses some steam toward its finish and gets a little meandering for my liking (especially with the nearly eight-minute "Gravi-thorn"). Still, if you get over the varied audial and aesthetic Rickrolls on hand, Snack Truck craft a noisy, dizzying little treat with this effort.

STREAM
Presence Charm
Blooms (Sweet)
Second Level
Life Prism
Gravi-thorn