Quixote are a bunch of sneaky bastards.
They begin their self-titled debut album with a stutter-stop indie-rock lick that sounds like so many other bands I can’t even figure out what it’s most like. Yet as that first song, “Annunaki,” moves along, it picks up speed and keeps me reasonably interested, and then takes a left turn somewhere around Pink Floyd’s “Animals” period. Yes, I’m interested, but still not surprised.
Then comes “Hubris,” which mixes acoustic/electric guitar and fiddle employing that same stuccato sound, only now making it sound country. What the hell are these guys about, making such intricate music and screaming like Modest Mouse? Most of the songs creep like this, stuttering and stumbling along, sometimes even ending abruptly and without warning–almost as if by accident. Yet they never stray too far from the indie rock formula, so that every tune sounds a little like one you’ve heard before, only slightly through the looking glass. The band has managed to make an amazingly catchy and fascinating album without breaking any new ground. It leaves the listener asking, “How the fuck did they do that?”
It’s no wonder their album cover is sideways.
