Localized Music: Coupleskate
Don’t Scare The Horses
Chicago indie-rock quartet Coupleskate knows a thing or two about starting anew under bittersweet circumstances. In 2007, a year after losing its longtime rhythm section to the insidious dual threats of love and marriage, the band reconfigured with another pair filling in. The counterintuitive feelings that would naturally transpire in such an event—happiness and regret—also appear in the band’s musical sensibility. "Laws Of Physics" kicks off Coupleskate's full-length debut, Don’t Scare The Horses, with a sweet swell of pedal-steel guitar before abruptly giving in to the pummeling bass gallops of early '90s alt-punk.
The band subtly continues the musical gearshifting on Horses' early tracks, an approach that allows lush, orchestral soundscapes to bloom in otherwise serviceable punk songs like "Friends With Pharmacies." Coupleskate shows its mettle when relenting to the more ethereal, multi-harmonic inclinations, as on the record’s title track. (At its absolute best, Don’t Scare The Horses redefines The Breeders as a countrypolitan act.) But frustration sets in when Coupleskate opts to wade delicately into unexplored musical forms. Such reticence proves to be unnecessary and detrimental, given in light of Coupleskate’s stylistic successes (hook-heavy keyboard pop of "Foreign Exchange," the reggae-tinged closing track “Lucky"). Who knows? Maybe horses need occasional reassurance, too. Grade: B+
Coupleskate's "Law Of Physics":
