Pinebender

Somewhere between 12 Rods, Sunny Day Real Estate, Dinosaur Jr. and Toronto-based Raising the Fawn, Pinebender's second full-length (their first for Lovitt records) is an ambitious and compelling collection of down-tempo indie rock that features Matt Clark from Joan of Arc. The album consists mostly of a well refined quiet/loud dynamic that, thankfully, doesn't resemble what we've come to expect from this overused formula. Lulling you to sleep one second and bombastically blasting you with walls of sound the next, the group's songwriter and vocalist Chris Hansen keeps the album sounding fresh by never relying on a single set of tricks to carry the album's eight tracks. The writing isn't always as strong as album highlights "Begin Here" and "Won't Be Long Now," but there's more than enough promise here to make Pinebender a band to watch closely in the future.