Even with
the best and most spirited practitioners of arty indie-rock such as Deerhoof or
Hella, it's hard to feel intimately connected. But one minute into "Beg Waves,"
the opening track of Ponytail's Ice Cream Spiritual, it's all tonsils, pelvis,
pit-sweat, and high-fives. The young Baltimore band has a savage, spastic knack
for turning screams into scream-alongs and guitar heroics into Choose Your
Own Adventure tales:
On the aptly titled "Celebrate The Body Electric (It Came From An Angel),"
deranged yelps and choral sweetness collide with gorgeously choreographed prog
detonations—a precise yet frenetic dance of dissonance that, at least in
a perfect world, Robert Fripp and Mike Patton would be proud to call their
lovechild. With precocity, chops, and even a playful quotation of Stevie Nicks'
"Edge Of Seventeen," Ponytail has rendered Ice Cream Spiritual insidiously infectious—and
bursting with an oddly tuneful virtuosity that aches to share rather than show off.