Artist Grooms

Grooms spread on plenty of guitar noise with what at first sounds like carelessness, but never nose-dive into slack-wristed irony. Their first album since changing their name from The Muggabears, 2009’s Rejoicer, gradually reveals a grasp of tangled composition that has more to do with the half-hidden guitar wizardry of Polvo than the inspired amateurism of Pavement. Guitarist Travis Johnson and band pull off plenty of uneasy quiet moments between friendly needle-sprays of distorted melody, finding emotional weight and a little math-rock sophistication. Johnson’s shaky harmonies with bassist Emily Ambruso coat these songs with a friendly element, but that doesn’t soften Grooms’ jarringly dense and volatile dynamics.

Updated 06/15/2011