It's nigh on impossible to neglect a band touting themselves as 'a ragtag troupe of cellar dwellers'. That band are Portland's Spy Island, and New Milesian Kings is a record expected next January (stream in its entirety here). A collection of 'handmade rock songs, homemade soft songs', it's an LP to grab ears by the lobes, to tug away at them with the brattish opportunism of a child yanking a parent down to its lowly eye level. Spasmodically sounding akin to haywire New Porno, Spy Island are at their most provocative when channeling the unsettling schizophrenia of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain-era Pavement, and never is this more so than on restrainedly scatty opener The Punchline. Barring a shuffled, scuffed bridge, it's a track that scuttles erratically like a mischief of rats squirming beneath your skin, and contains more condensed energy in three minutes, twelve than the duration of yesteryear's imprudent reunion of Malkmus et al. For similarly momentous moments, may we recommend the Knopfler-like harmonic duelling guitar solo that kills off The Arctic Council and Spy Island's finest 'homemade soft song' Queen Zombie? Course we can. The Punchline by SPY ISLAND
