Barmitzvah Brothers

Always keen to magnify the novelty of everyday life, the Barmitzvah Brothers set their sights upon underappreciated jobs and the people who complete them. With titles like "Projectionist” and "Sign Erector,” the songs pick one vocation or another and dedicate themselves to essential narratives about the task at hand. It’s an interesting exploration for principal songwriters Jenny Mitchell and Geordie Gordon, whose divergent styles of late make for a Barmitzvah Brothers album split in two. Aside from cool pop like "Piano Tuner” and "Show Promoter,” Mitchell’s songs aim to tug hard at the heartstrings, resulting in a horde of dour, banjo-plunked ruminations like "Dentitech” and "Book Binder.” Gordon on the other hand, keenly infuses soul into full-band arrangements like the road-to-nowhere spring of "Barmitzvah Brother” and infectious pop of "Traffic Technician.” The end result is a start-stop record that sacrifices flow to loosely tell the tales of completely unrelated subjects.