SYNONYM ROCK!

Long Beach's Greater California are so consistent in the production of indescribably wonderful aural soundscapes that we found ourselves grabbing for our thesaurus while listening to this, their second full-length. After a while, we came up with such literate descriptions as "whispery etherealness," "ghostly melancholic," "willowy splendiferousness," "lushly obtuse," "intoxicatingly ingenious," "dreamily hypnotic" and "fucking awesome." At the end of Somber Wurlitzer's opening track, for instance, there's a mysterious, otherworldly organ note that hangs there for what seems like a good solid minute, letting you indulge in your own imagination as to what the hell's happening. "Portuguese Hall," meanwhile, is a lovely instrumental that feels like a sad slow dance, stepping gingerly across a floor of echo-y bah-bah-bah choruses. Singer Terry Prine's deep, practically disembodied moan of a voice–you don't really care what he's singing as much as the way he's singing–is both disarming and comforting, like wrapping yourself up in the warm old coat your uncle shot himself in. There are poignant paeans to missing summers, changing seasons and stuff we don't have a clue about, but we love the way they keep us guessing. Eerie soundtrack music for endless midnight drives to nowhere; for whiskey drinking in weed-choked, forgotten cemeteries; for staring back at shifty characters who'll look at you only from the corners of their eyes.

Contact: greaterca@aol.com.

–Rich Kane