2 out of 5

Label: sbr? (this is the cat number abbreviation; no label info in liner notes or disc runout)

Producer: Paul Malinowski, Houston

It’s hard to pinpoint why exactly this album fails – and it’s not a complete failure, teetering right on the verge of being interesting – since all of the elements of Houston’s 54’40 follow-up, ‘Bottom of the Curve’, are absolutely present here, but it’s some lacking combination of elements that makes the record pass by without really making any impression.  Despite some strong riffs, despite Jeff Halland’s passionate croon creeping into the mix, despite (or maybe because of…?) Shiner member Paul Malinowski overseeing half of the tracks… ‘Head Like a Road Map’ has bits and pieces that could be (and I guess would be) assembled into something strong and formidable, but are spread too thin to amount to something more than average.

Sho let’s address that Shiner thing, ’cause maybe that has more to do with it than I realize.  Because it always seemed like I should dig Shiner and its many linked bands, but except for select releases from offshoots (like I dig Life and Times EP, but the following full length loses me (I think… pending that review… pending a retroactive edit here to pretend that my opinions are consistent FOREVER)), the band never struck home with me, falling into that wasteland of post-rock stuff from Chicago / the mid-West (Houston hailing from Minnesota) where middling production and song structure that refuses to come to a head takes its toll on my listening experience.  There does seem to be a struggle on ‘Road Map’ between blasting riffs that break out (‘i’m not sayin’ (i’m just sayin’)’s main hook, the appropriately titled ‘romp’s build-up – both shadows of the stalwart use of similar riffs on ‘Bottom’) and an overall sound that dips into unnecessary electronic manipulation (also ‘i’m not sayin’ – a big WTF to the vocal burbles) and cuts away before a track can build to anything legit.  Without hearing the self-released disc before this one (‘Overhead’), I can’t say for sure if this was a steady progression, but I imagine the band looking to relative superstar Malinowsky for guidance, directly or not, and he shaved off the groups arena-rock tendencies to push them to something more moody.  Totes a guess.

Along these same lines, Halland isn’t quite letting reverb rule the world yet, and so while his singing achieves that same sense of enthusiasm as on ‘Curve,’ he’s not fully embellishing it, and it’s mixed more level with the rest of the noise, so nothing quite stands out.

This being said, there’s some really impressive drumming /guitar breakdowns that weren’t put to use on the next release, but that also seems like remnants of a hardcore influence that was understandably left behind when pursuing something cleaner.  One song off of this on a comp might’ve caught my attention, but a whole disc of it never feels like it uses any of that pummeling promise lurking in the too-brief choruses to achieve a consistent groove, instead letting the song end or cutting off in favor of a pointless bridge and/or studio tweaking.