"Two for the Road" album review in the PORTLAND PHOENIX (Aug 8th-14th) by Sam Pfeifle
Over two fun and up-beat pop-punk records from Local Nothing, drummer Andre Tranchemontagne, frontman Pete Vachon, and bassist Adam Croteau proved themselves more than capable of getting heads bobbing and having lots of fun, but they’ve gotten a level more interesting with the addition of vocalist and guitarist Jeff Roberts to their new band, Pinsky. Their debut EP, Two for the Road, shows significantly more texture and nuance than Local Nothing’s work.
“Beverly” might masquerade as a fun-and-games summer radio hit, but there’s a touch of disturbed obsession there, too. Fun: “I don’t want to play games/I just want to play doctor.” Disturbed: “I’ll hide you on the East Coast/Maybe Portland, Maine/Maybe Beverly, Mass.” (I mean, who would ever want to go to Beverly?) Later, they clip a great line from the art flick Chumscrubber: “It’s not that I don’t like talking. No. It’s just that I don’t like talking to you.” I wouldn’t mind looking through their DVD collection.
Vachon and Roberts trade off vocal duties nicely, alternatingly straining the vocal chords on emo-style screamers and providing good-guy background support. “Sailor Song” is a great little ballad, full of piano and strings and an aggressive acoustic guitar strummed with a vengeance. With its “I’ll be there for you” sentiment, it’s too bad The OC isn’t around anymore, but maybe the new 90210 is still looking for soundtrack material.
The final track on Pinsky’s six-song, 20-minute effort, “What We’re Doing,” is the most interesting cut. It opens with inane party talk you think will go away, but doesn’t, for a solid minute and a half, while we’re buffeted by an electric guitar and lyrics like, “You and I are gonna be/Alone again/So let’s try to think/Of something new.”
Then, just when you thought it was a kind of bad live recording from a bar where people don’t care about the music much, the song opens way up with huge guitars and tantalizing piano.
“I don’t want,” we’re told in repetition, “the same old response.”
No, people should respond even more to this.
