The Craig Torso Show came into being in 2020 with Estonian Breakfast Strategies, an impressive album branded with a smart and crafty DIY attitude and vision.
Spawned as a side project by vocalists and multi-faceted instrumentalists Oliver Ignatius of Holy Fang and Joe Merklee of Damfino, the current version of this East Coast-based outfit also includes Damfino’s Joel Bachrach on piano and the All About’s Zac Coe on drums.
No sophomore slump, Conflagration Vespers serves to be a practical continuation of Estonian Breakfast Strategies as the Craig Torso Show focuses on melody and movement, unraveling one earworm after another. Punchy vocals, supplanted by a pairing of conventional pop-rock structures and peculiar detours and then crowned with wordy prose, are the qualities that make these songs tick and stick.
The band, whose name was hijacked from the Bonzo Doo Dog Dah Band’s “The Craig Torso Christmas Show,” shows an affinity for stacking big hooks atop streaming rhythms. That aptitude is exercised on the paralyzing “Work of an Astronomer,” and the blistering title track from Conflagration Vespers. Ditto for “Hope Deferred,” which expands into a cluster of clattering guitars, pulsing keyboards and hard-hitting drums.
Strummy chords morph into a peppy beat bouncing with groovy organ tweets on “Thief In the Night,” and the equally spunky “In Utsunomiya” checks in as a great pop song on every level.
The utterly eccentric “Noah Fents (Fruits and Virtues)” starts off with a run of fast-fingered classical Spanish guitar flourishes, trailed by a cloud of celestial harmonies. The Craig Torso Show then follows with a blizzard of loud, heavy and aggressive sounds, before wrapping things up by returning to the classical Spanish guitar playing.
Magnetic Fields fans will enjoy a cover of “Strange Powers” that jangles to a super speedy punk-informed stance, where a rendition of Peter Blagveld’s “On Obsession” is clothed in moody orchestration.
Although similarities to Weezer and Fountains of Wayne occupy Conflagration Vespers, the Craig Torso Show possesses more of an experimental edge than these bands. Buzzing with unsettling emotions and a sphere of tones and colors, here’s an album filled with tasty surprises.
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