There’s a couch on the cover of Robbers On High Street’s newest record, Grand Animals, that looks as if it belongs jointly to a stately library in some dimly lit mansion – one that the Mystery Machine gang always found a revolving bookcase in – or a funeral parlor. The upholstery is the kind of golden, silky yellow that you see almost exclusively on grandmas or in their mothball-smelling homes. There are probably, upon close inspection, a number of thread barren moments all over its seat and arms. Propped against the cushions are three pillows featuring the crocheted faces of Ben Trokan, Steve Mercado and Morgan King – the principle members of the New York-based group. They look odd and completely too undated for the furniture, but faces of the three, or more the sound that they’ve worked themselves into, is every bit of a period piece as the couch and its one-foot-in-the-grave covering. It’s also, for reasons that are beyond me, a nice argument against the band attempting to crib the stylish milieu of a certain other band (of which needn’t be spoken here for it’s spoken everywhere else). Trokan does not look or act like a doctor of cool like the one person everyone likes to say he sounds like/tries to sound like does. The music on Grand Animals is scores and leagues more of the air that’s already been lived and filtered and lived again. It is of the past and for the present, but it doesn’t register coolly or rub the right way. It just tells of itself in smart phrases and leathery binding. Recorded on July 10 in the middle of the afternoon, this session seems to have an even crisper antique tone. We couldn’t be happier. Nature got its way. – Sean Moeller

First song
The Phantom Walks the Halls (Robbers On High Street) [3.67MB] [1789 downloads]


– original version appears on Grand Animals

Second song
Across Your Knee (Robbers On High Street) [3.35MB] [1735 downloads]


– original version appears on Grand Animals

Third song
Crown Victoria (Robbers On High Street) [3.58MB] [1771 downloads]


– original version appears on Grand Animals