4 out of 5

Label: You Are Not Stealing Records

Producer: Stealing Orchestra

A bit too aggressive to be lounge music, a bit too quirky to be groove, and a bit too focused to just be experimental, ‘The Incredible Shrinking Band’ is totally an experience, starting as one thing and then shifting up and down the scale of fun and creepy and sultry to become other things.  There is, absolutely, a Spanish flavor to the whole thing, fitting for a group from Portugal, and it’s easy to doll up the record as a sorta sexy affair that Stereolab fans will like, and then track 5 hits – an amped up cover of the Tetris theme.   Okay, so the band has a sense of humor, you’re thinking, but besides the quick draw guitar, the addition of some extra key work atop the track – notes and sounds to flesh it out into a full song and not a cover – add legitimacy to what could be just cheeky.  Then when the rock (not heavy, but definitely not the groove that came before) hits with next track ‘May All Of Us Live Long Enough…’ you realize the group is just going to follow their own flow, through the more quiet ‘Nanotech Virus,’ and down through some more contemplative work toward the record’s tail end.  It never doesn’t make sense or feels out of place, but it’s also frequently exciting.  You can never be certain how the album will twist.

Still, the overall tag is one of experimentation or jamming, and it seems to purposefully start in very safe territory (adult-friendly foreign-tinted groove pop) to warm you up for when it takes flight into much more exciting and interesting compositions.