4 out of 5

Label: Fistpuppet

Producer: John McEntire (Engineer)

John McEntire???  Whatchoo doin’ on here, girl?  That may be off – that’s a credit from Allmusic.  I’ll have to dig out my liner notes to verify (which won’t happen), but I’m surprised I don’t link his name to this album since that sticks out.

So Pitchblende.  By way of Turing Machine, that’s how I arrived here.  Any musical ties?  Not really.  PB stands out more as some kind of serious middleground between Thinking Fellers and Pavement, grabbing the experimental structure elements of the former with the repetitive mash of the latter.  The group rocks harder than both, but is also, you could say, not as defined as either.  Au Jus gets a little lost under its broad sweep, symbolized by the 18 tracks dropping into several ‘untitled’ numbers for the latter half of the album.  Fellers can achieve this kind of spiraling head trip because it’s their M.O. almost through and through, so when riffs peak around the corner, it sharpens up the whole affair.  On Au Jus, though, the band starts by delivering some excellent post-pop, post-rock nigh-masterpieces, clashes of sound and bouncy bass, crunchy guitar and sharp drum fills.  The monotone vocals burst with energy at the right moments, with choruses hinting at lyrical themes that make tuning in for the rest of the lines worthwhile.  But track 3 gives us our first ‘feller filler’-ish sound segue and we lose the pace.  The album wanders, soundwise, before refinding its bursts on ‘X’s for I’s,’ which is one of those tracks that always has me scrabbling to the player to check which song is playing.

Au Jus is an album of evolving rewards, something that grows into a more complete picture when you ditch the album concept and just put it on repeat.  It’s easy to get distracted from the less structured tracks by the opening rockers, but remembering to listen proves worth every moment, the group finding a lot of interesting noise to create with a seemingly simple guitar-bass-drums setup.  Listen to it a few times, leave it alone, and come back to it a few days later.  The songs will sound brand new.  It’s one of those.  Meep.