By Jack Daniel Betz

A new project is afoot from two of the same people who brought you Houston’s The Black Math Experiment. Their debut “The Maybe Laser” is an eclectic collage of dozens of styles and genres all punctuated with synth tones, bleeps and bloops that would sound very at home on a record by the late Unicorns.

The vocal style is mostly that of sprechgesang, leaving Jeff lots of room to inject wit and humor that might otherwise be stifled by a strict rock delivery. Perhaps the best example of this is “Safe Journey” which, with its clanky square wave arpeggios and wise advice, comes across as a colder, more post-modern rendition of Baz Luhrman’s “Always Wear Sunscreen”. It offers, “If someone comes down and knocks down your Lego home, build another. Then knock down their Lego home”.

To throw in another allusion that kept coming up for me while listening to this record, let’s just mention Ween. The cutting guitar hooks and squeaky clean production coupled with occasionally goofy but insightful lyrics certainly puts the two close together in my own mental, musical filing system.

It will be interesting to see what the next album is like: another colorful variety hour or something more nailed down? Either way, it will probably be a pleasure.