Unglued Reviews

Quirky four-piece Piebald have been around since the mid-’90s (having regrouped after a brief split earlier this decade), and while their early releases endeared them to the emocore set, their sound has developed into a solid nerd-rock style that contrasts plenty of crunching guitar with occasional piano and frontman Travis Shettel’s weedy singing voice.

Accidental Gentlemen finds the band continuing to grow and mature. Shettel’s once trademark sense of wit is now more evident in song titles (Getting Mugged And Loving It, the cutely titled opening track Opener) than the lyrics. In fact, rather than wordplay still being their most memorable characteristic, it’s rapidly becoming their ecological interests that form the defining image of the band. The trio of Life On The Farm, the choppy Nature Wins and jaunty, piano-heavy bike anthem Roll On that conclude the listed tracks (a hidden re-recording of old song We Cannot Read Poetry follows) in particular paint a lyrical fixation with getting in touch with and respecting nature. Backing up these words with actions, the band have modified their tour van to run on used cooking oil, kind of making them hippies who actually know how to rock.

And rock out they do: There’s Always Something To Do (The Strutter) boasts a killer riff, Oh, The Congestion’s jittery guitar is full of agitation, and Getting Mugged And Loving It is upbeat and crunchy. This is, however, balanced out by the placid On And On and moreso the ambling cover of The Kinks’ Strangers, although the energy level of the album as a whole is high.

Accidental Gentlemen’s main drawback is that the songs don’t stick in your mind as much as their best material, but it’s still a worthwhile album, if not the best introduction to the band for a new listener.

Owen Heitmann