The Muslims
The Muslims
(1928 Recordings)
From Portishead to the Mountain Goats, any number of artists have
taken to including MP3 download codes inside the vinyl versions of
their albums. But the self-titled debut by lo-fi San Diego rockers the
Muslims offers a tongue-in-cheek tweak on that concept: the seven-song
12-inch features as its bonus a CD that contains the vinyl recording
plus three more songs. In other words, the Muslims have hidden their
debut album inside their debut EP. Of course, the CD can also be
purchased by itself, but when the joke’s this good, why bother?
Besides, the Muslims’ music is best heard on vinyl anyway. Like a
few other buzzy, newer rock combos, the band play muffled garage-rock
with their hooks way up front. The melancholy “Beside Myself” is
tom-tom-heavy and feather-light, its guitar lead both bright and
worn—the kind of song you might expect a college-radio DJ to spin
twice in a row, just because. I’ll go ahead and say it: The band the
Muslims remind me of the most is the Strokes. They have a similarly
tight, jittery approach to well-written songs; vocalist Matt Lamkin has
the same underlying moan even when he gets excitable (see “Future
Rock”) that Julian Casablancas has—though these Californians are
more prone to playing with Velvet Underground–style noisiness, as
on “Religion.”
The Muslims doesn’t find the band at the level Is This
It found the Strokes, and it’s easy to easy to hear why the last
three songs didn’t quite make it onto vinyl: “Nightlife” rides a
rubbery, ingratiating bass riff and occasional fuzzy keyboard clusters
on its way to an exuberant “Whoa-oa!” refrain, but it’s hard not to
wish they’d written a few more lyrics for it. Nevertheless, there’s
always room for one more Velvet Underground descendant when it’s done
this well.