Menomena: "Wet And Rustling"

Somewhere between “Oahu” and “Monkey’s Back,” or somewhen between I Am the Fun Blame Monster (2004) and Under An Hour (2005), or somewhy because of hyperbolic statements about their brilliance and meticulous anti-structures and drum friezes and beautifully absurd album packaging, Menomena has pulled in the reigns, sucked in their guts, trimmed the fat, started reading Cheever over Tom Robbins, whatever. For “Wet and Rusting,” the debut single off Menomena’s official sophomore LP and first for Barsuk, characteristic parts are still in prominent display: the arpeggiated piano lines mic’d like their caramelized in anti-freeze; crescendo-ing lichens of synth staggered with snare-fevered drum breaks built like fucking radio aerials; the inevitable climax of melody, fulfilling every snapshot promise; the economic white noise, white because the technicolor’s too seamlessly woven into the mix. But even with touchstones so tactile that palm-shaving is a priority, “Wet and Rusting” is Menomena at their most aware, and one can only hope that Friend and Foe is as breathlessly honed to a point.

Perhaps Under An Hour leant the band a confidence in diagram they had seemingly proscribed before, content in the recycled bliss of loops and stuttering jump cuts and futuristic computer programs that simultaneously made complicated studio compositions so much easier and the ante inalterably upped. Hour felt flawed when its repetition and moments of instrumental divergence became obligatory, married ‘til death to some sort of ineffable structure. If splayed out in short hand, the songs became blueprints of conch shell A/C currents, and sometimes, winding in on themselves, the compositions revealed their formula and lost their mystique. “Wet and Rusting,” while a typical Bacchanalian cavort between percussionist Danny Seim and bassist Justin Harris, so calculated and restless, is finally goddamned brisk. Instead of pointing to their craft, they allude to their genius, making the climax and hardy bloating of the song—as drums, bass, piano, and vocals, meat ‘n potatoes -- a matter of deftly understood logic, not a eureka over a dissected treasure map.