Words by Gabe Durham//Illustration by Jorge Tapia
Indie roll call! We’ve got some Jenny Lewis-like female vocals from Calia Thompson, and just like in Lewis’ Rilo Kiley, Shapes & Sizes sound best with Thompson at the forefront. There’s some Danielson Familesque production in which vocals move in and out of the forefront, the lead is traded between the three singers, and wacky touches like a tuneless whistling solo (“Wilderness”) are always around the corner. The better of the male singer sounds like the lead singer of Bedroom Walls. There’s some early Modest Mouse-like atonality in there. Plus they’re Canadian like the Arcade Fire. That’s all the ways to pigeonhole Shapes and Sizes that I can think of for now. But the comparisons don’t do justice to Shapes and Sizes’ self-titled debut. This band has come up with a mixed bag that is entirely their own. The album starts strong with “Island’s Gone Bad,” a quiet melancholy tune that jumps into a frolicky rocker. Thompson’s line, “I like eating fruit off of trees when I’m with you,” trades with the guys’ line, “Children going mad, children going mad, it’s so sad, eating moms, eating dads.” Then a sax jumps into the mix and it all dissolves into a beautiful mess. But it begs the question, “Do these two lyrics have anything to do with each other?” Other great moments include “Northern Lights,” a dynamic rock tune, “Oh No, Oh Boy,” which features the biggest musical climax on the album, and “Wilderness,” a slow-building horn and piano song. In “Wilderness,” Thompson sings, “Kisses are our friends, my friend. And I know a lot about them.” But she doesn’t sound like she’s seducing. It’s more like she’s lying to her friends on the playground. This is part of the charm of the band: They sound child-like, but not childish. Still, often promising melodies don’t really build up to anything interesting, they just move on to the next haphazard idea. Especially in the electronic noise of “Weekends At A Time,” the muddled, weighty “Rory’s Bleeding,” and in “Topsy Turvy,” a circus-rock tune that just comes off as aimless. The album ends with “Boy, You Shouldn’t Have” in which all three singers trading parts on the lyric, “Wouldn’t you like to know how to not care? I’ll never tell you.” It’s a good song that presents a convoluted question and an unsatisfactory answer. That’s the gist of this record. Much of the familiarity of the sound has to do with the fact that the label “indie” tends to characterize bands that try not fit snugly in a genre. Shapes and Sizes is an appealing band that is determined not to produce conventional music. That’s a good start.

Shapes and Sizes
Asthmatic Kitty Records