3 out of 5

Label: Cutting Hedge

Produced by: Vicki Bennett

People Like Us was apparently going through some upheavals and changes at the time of Thermos Explorer’s release. I don’t know any more info than what’s mentioned in that bandcamp link, but presumably written by Vicki Bennett, a car accident made her fairly immobile during its composition, and there was the seemingly sudden wider availability of more digital tools and wider internet access to consider.

Some guesswork as to the impact of all that provides some analysis for the album’s sound, which I’d call cautious. I can only image how being lain up for X amount of time (and who knows what she was being told in terms of recovery) can cause creative wheels to spin differently, and the songs kind of carefully tip-toe into humor and absurdity – it’s rather subdued, as though Vicki was testing the waters of whatever new gear. Which isn’t a knock on its quality, as this is quite an amusing album, just that it’s not especially dense for PLU material, and is pretty structured, loping from folksy, casual beats (with occasional fart sound effects, why not), to manipulated call-in radio clips, to 60s pop mash-ups and then back again. The predictability of that is both pleasant and limiting: the first few tracks tell the tale, then we iterate on that, to the extent that you might think the album has started over before it has.

The potential mesmeric quality of such repetition swirls into the concluding, 13 minute Serenade, which has a long, ambient stretch of outdoor sounds.

While the album may not have stand out moments in this sequencing, its evenness amongst PLU’s catalogue makes it a perfect unobtrusively fun soundtrack to walking about, cleaning, etc…