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• Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos' Not Animal

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It took me four listens to decide about my opinion on the new Margot & The Nuclear So and Sos' record, and even then I was unsure.

I don’t get that feeling from records that often, that sense of apathy. Very few songs screamed out at me either way, saying, “I’m awesome” or “I am a stinker.” The songs were just kind of there.

And maybe that’s my opinion of Not Animal. Maybe this band is just kind of middle of the road indie-pop, trying too hard to go somewhere new but ultimately sounding rehashed and unoriginal.

The songs plod on, mostly sounding like a mix of Belle & Sebastian and Radiohead (which is done much better by the band Midlake). They are a bit too precious, calculated and safe (even if there is some fantastic work done by drummer Chris Fry, who is able to propel some songs into territory that would have otherwise sunk them under their own weight).

The songs hide behind a wall of faux experimentation, which again, steals too much from what Radiohead has been doing. The edges are all smoothed out.

That’s not to say the album doesn’t have its moments, though. The opening track, “A Children’s Crusade on Acid,” is built upon an interesting percussion background (props to Fry again) with an acoustic guitar over it. It is not that far from trip-hop, and it works.

There is also a stretch of about three songs, “Pages Written on a Wall,” “Shivers (I’ve Got ‘Em)” and “The Ocean (Is Bleeding Salt),” where the band sounds like they have a pulse. They are playing their hearts out, and they sound like they are having fun rocking out. The stretch is a real highlight of the album, and I found myself actually enjoying these songs instead of just letting them fade into the background.

I only could have hoped the rest of the album was this strong. If they had just let loose a little more, the songs could have breathed, and the rest of the record could have stood as strong as the three or four that do. Maybe then I would not have been as uncertain as I was while continually listening to Not Animal.

The price scale: I rate albums more or less by price. Since a fair price for a CD at a store such as Best Buy is around $12.99, Margot & the Nuclear So and Sos' Not Animal, I say, stands at a value of $7.50/$12.99.