Big Numbers
Spectrum
Frog Man Jake Records

Accusations of Big Numbers being at their most blatant a Big Black knock-off are not entirely unfounded, but it would lead the indie-pedestrian to accept that they are merely Albinian. But that feral man himself, diminutive and abrasive as he may be, is himself Napoleonic, and the amount of power and control he wrests from mere desk knobs and pegheads is frighteningly deceptive, giving every pluck and jingling rumble an attack so crucial to wartime success.

That is also what Big Numbers is conquering with. Spacious and ever-expanding in their maze-like structures, yet able to turn inwards and devour itself on a dime, Big Numbers builds and wrecks halls of splintering mirrors, fissuring labyrinths with rhythms both Gordian and terse over two-minute clenches of torniqueted yelps of words like "impious," "unfileable," and "serpentine." And at three songs in seven minutes, this Providence/Brooklyn band of ex-Candy Machine and At the Drive-In alum shows that rock is not necessarily a war of attrition, but of surprise.

Copyright © 2002 Andy Beta