Author's Note: This is a re-post of a previously published review, that didn't have a proper product entry to file it under until today. I have deleted the old review.

I can't remember when the last time was that I was so bubbling over with anticipation for a band's proper "debut" album. Maybe Evanescence in 2003, or maybe some solo artist from a band I liked, but I forgot about them by now because the material wasn't so good. In any case, it's a rare event that I get so hyped about a band before they even have a substantial collection of material out. But Mute Math, a spinoff band from the most excellent rap/rock/reggae/electronica combo Earthsuit, has earned the buzz. Their brief collection of chilled-out lyrics and melodies often paired with furious, driving rhythms made pretty much every track on the Reset EP a concentrated dose of musical goodness, and I discovered last summer that they put on one heck of a relentless live show. I couldn't wait to see how their dance-and-trance informed modern rock sensibilities translated into a full-length album, and while it's been a bit of a wait, I've finally gotten my wish.

Some label troubles almost got into the way. Despite signing with Teleprompt, at the time an imprint of Christian label Word Records, the band was a bit miffed about the lack of effort spent marketing them to a mainstream audience. So they chose to sever ties with the Christian music industry (as a lot of intelligent Christian bands have seemingly been doing lately - see The Elms and Luna Halo), and go the independent route for the time being, making their full-length debut only available at live shows. While I had snagged a download from the internet at the tour's inception, I still wanted a physical copy of the album, and I was initially denied my chance to get it when their L.A. gig sold out while my friends and I were waiting in line. (Security wouldn't even let me in to go to the merch table.) Fortunately, I appeared to not be the only one with this problem, so they responded to popular demand and made the album available through the online store zambooie.com. I was elated, because this is the sort of album that needs the continuous, flowing experience of a physical CD, rather than mp3's which briefly interrupt the flow as tracks transition into one another, to be fully appreciated. It seems like such a small thing, those fractions of seconds while WinAmp or whatever is calling up the next file (those of you with faster computers or better music software likely don't have such issues), but it mattered to me, and anyway, I try to be good about buying this stuff when I like it!

So, does the album live up to the hype? Well, it's my favorite thing released so far in 2006. But I can't bring myself to just slap an "A" on it and be done with it. The musicianship is superb. The lyrics are heartfelt, and fit the mood of the music well, opting to let a point sink in slowly through repetition in many places rather than barraging the listener with lots of verbiage. (I like verbiage, but it isn't Mute Math's thing - however, they don't write dumb lyrics, just more succinct ones.) It's definitely an album that I can get lot in, from the slamming beats and energetic guitar licks on the faster songs, to the slowly building beauty of the ballads (which can often become as dense and energetic as the more rocking songs without the listener fully realizing it). So what's not to love here, then?

Well, the packaging is a tad bit deceiving. See the 13 tracks listed? There are actually only 9 songs. Nine. Can you believe that, with nearly an hour's worth of music? Sure, it beats having only 6 on an EP, but it's frustrating that 3 of the 4 instrumental tracks are merely short segues, with the other being an (admittedly fun) extended jam on the song preceding it. I don't mind extended instrumental outros - this device was used to superb effect on Delirious?'s landmark worship album Glo, and tracks like these lend themselves well to Christian music as they allow the listener to soak up some good music while meditating for a while on whatever was just said. But I feel like the band is holding back their wizardry in several places, settling for repeating something really good instead of blowing the roof off with something really awesome. While I can enjoy the work of some bands like Dream Theater who may only have seven or eight tracks on an album, I find myself wishing Mute Math could have occasionally cut a minute or two of a rather sprawling song in order to offer us the minimum requirement of ten songs that a "normal album" would have. It's a small nitpick, but then, I've only docked them a small amount of credit for it. I want to save that A rating for the album that feels as long and involved as it appears like it'll be, so I think a B+ is good enough for now.

Collapse
The first interlude is actually kind of fun - a slamming, stuttering beat with echoes of a voice calling off into the distance and some other cut-up instruments and stuff, setting the stage nicely for the first slamming rocker.

Typical
Now I've lived through my share of misfortune
And I've worked in the blazing sun
But how long should it take somebody
Before they can be someone...
Thou shalt not be fooled by the title. This song is anything but typical. You'll realize that as soon as the hyperactive, stumbling-over-itself-to-get-ahead guitar riff takes off and the bumrush of smacking drums hits you over the head. Tempo-wise, it's not an extremely fast song, but Darren King has a way of filling in the space with a lot of banging around, which is especially fun when his sampling and looping is tweaking things just enough to make the band feel like one big robotic party - this is one case where techno influences don't make a band feel cold (Earthsuit was always good at that, too). Lead singer Paul Meany, with his half-scratchy punk, half-silky lounge singer persona, is the most human element, singing of a desperate desire for God to break him free from the humdrum of everyday life - "I know there's got to be another level!" is what he declares loudly and exuberantly during the chorus, praying that God would "break the spell of the typical". Though God is not named explicitly in Mute Math's songs, the tone is very confessional and conversational, making it something that non-Christians can hopefully relate to while also maintaining an air of reverence that nicely balances out all of the manic energy. There are lots of goodies here, from the way Paul shouts "typ-i-CAL!!!" (which can sound like "tippy cow" - his enunciation isn't always the greatest) to the tricky little parts where a beat or a keyboard part takes over as the rest of the band drops out for a little bit, and you think the melody's totally wandered off, only for it to slide right back in as if nothing had ever been amiss.

After We Have Left Our Homes
This first of two rather unnecessary interludes shows up here - it's here to ensure that "Typical" is difficult to separate out for the purposes of putting it on a mix CD or something, as it carries that song's outro into an echoing track with gurgling synths and layered vocals repeating, "When can we start over?"

Chaos
Complication's my claim to fame
And I can't believe there's another, constantly just another
Can't avoid what I can't control
And I'm losing ground, still I can't stand down...
I knew I loved this song ever since they opened with it when playing The Viper Room last year. From the opening "Ka-POW!" of the drums and the video game-like blurping of synths, you just know you're in for something fun. This is one of those songs that feels like it's going up in flames, and Paul Meany is the pyromaniac hopping about with glee as the whole thing blows sky high. He has an uncanny knack for maintaining rhythm here even though his lyrics sound like he's exhausted and continually behind the beat. (It's more a matter of where the ear expects the beat to be - a tricky balance to maintain without totally disorienting the listener.) "I know You stay true when my word is false, everything around's breaking down to chaos", are the words that fly by during the chorus. It gets a little repetitive towards the end, I suppose, but much like the fabulous "Control", it's hard not to get swept away in the song's raging current. Another brief section of layered, echoing vocals comes to wash the song away at the end - thankfully it's not a separate track this time!

Noticed
And all this time, oblivious
To what You make so obvious...
The 80's influence that some might have picked up on (gee, was Paul's use of a keytar a big enough hint?) comes to the forefront in this song, which has a very rubbery, new-wave beat to it. (A guy who saw that I had an Earthsuit poster in my office many years ago once told me they looked like a "New age Devo", which is a fitting description of how Mute Math sounds here, except that they don't have the dopey vocals.) It's probably a more "sappy" instance of songwriting than Mute Math's usual fare, with Paul gleefully expressing the joy of rediscovering emotion after a long period of being numb. "You are reaching something that is beating, I can't believe I never noticed my heart before", he sings, and it's an infectious sentiment. The vintage-meets-modern feel of the music is probably what helps the sentimentality to keep from being overwhelming (kind of like a less snotty version of The Killers), but it's the tricky drumming and the energetic guitar jam section in the middle where Greg Hill is just slamming away at those chords like there's no tomorrow (his tone is more chimey than distorted, setting Mute Math apart from many modern rock acts) that probably demand the most attention.

Without It
Some memories are crippling
Don't let the disease bring us down
There's nothing else to know, just let it go
Yeah, we'll do without it somehow
As the last note of "Noticed" rings out the band makes a slick transition into a mellower, sparkling song, with a simple but effective piano part trickling through it, that appears to be about the end of the world. Or maybe some sort of difficult crisis that turns someone's life upside down. The tone is not foreboding, though - it's comforting, in its own strange way. The band's touch is much lighter here, slowing the rhythm to half-time without missing a beat, and taking a more controlled, even tone as they assure us, "The world's gone, don't think about it, 'cause life is short, we'll do without it." It's one of those songs that seems frustratingly vague at times, but then the "it" can kind of be whatever you want it to be - something you thought you needed and figured you'd never be able to live without, and now you're emerging from that period of loss, shell-shocked, but realizing, "Hey, life beyond that big important thing ain't so bad after all." It's not my favorite track on the album, but it has a glistening, well-polished-without-being-sterilized tone to it that keeps things flowing beautifully.

Polite
The most useless interlude of them all - it's pretty much just a minute of programmed drum beats and other rhythmic background sounds. It's a nice enough groove, but it doesn't really go anywhere, and they should have either expanded it into some good soling, or just dropped it altogether.

Stare at the Sun
The sky is always wondering, what are these arguments about?
You'd think we'd have noticed our eyes are burning out
We should have learned by now...
This is track 8, and we're actually only on the fifth song. See why the album seems to go by so fast despite the generous song lengths? This one's definitely the most "out there" song on the album - it comes sauntering in on a spacey rhythm of 6/8 with an uneasy chord progression and some alien keyboard tones. Don't forget the bass! Roy Mitchell-Cardenas knows how to lay it on thick here, conspiring with Darren King to create addictive pattern of "THUD-tap-tap-bump-tap-tap-THUD-tap-tap-bump-THUD-tap-THUD." Yeah, be careful how high you turn up your low-end on this one. Paul's lyrics run in parallel to a U2 song with a similar title, describing people as mesmerized, complacent, and argumentative, refusing to budge from the beautiful blazing sun they're gazing at even though it will quickly blind them. The musical style stops just short of carrying over into funk, due to the still-mechanical nature of the rhythm, but the unpredictable melody and the loose, stammering bits of percussion here and there set us up perfectly for the album's only extended jam piece.

Obsolete
As instrumentals go, this one's pretty good, twisting and bending the 6/8 rhythm of the previous song like taffy, changing up the chord sequence while the bass plays limbo underneath it, and tossing out all manner of vibey keyboard passages and clattering drum solos. At over four minutes, the combination of this track and the one before it that it's inextricably linked to ends up being about nine minutes long, which is a bit much, perhaps testing the patience of those who find the whole tone of the song to be a bit too absurd. I happen to like it, and taken as one big, long song, it's a winner. I do miss the presence of a fully realized, fully independent instrumental track like "Reset", though.

Break the Same
The crowds roll by, and I'm falling in
Everyone's invincible, but it's just pretend...
Something about this song, while it was energetic and thought-provoking, seemed to me like it started to drag after a while when I heard it in concert. I feel the same way about it on the album. It starts off fine and dandy, with a big wallop of a lead guitar riff, dancing its way around the slamming drums to create an amazing hook. The melody backs off a bit for the verses, which allow Paul to muse on human frailty over little other than a beat and some synths holding the place of a melody in the background. The song quickly goes from a mellow sigh to a roar as the verse neatly turns a corner into a chorus - "And only tears, know how, to remind us we ALL BREAK THE SAME!" Suddenly, there's that crescendo and that glorious hook again. The main problem here is that the band doesn't know when to quit with their "We all break the same" credo, repeating it over and over as the song takes its sweet time to fizzle out, not really saying anything new past the four-minute mark even though it stretches out past seven. These guys have a wonderful sound and it's fun to hear them experiment and play off of each other as the instruments variously stop and start, but after a while, Paul's whispers and shouts and beat boxing and whatever else start to get a little old, and I'm left thinking, "OK, I get it! We all break the same! Different song, please!"

You Are Mine
There are objects of affection
That can mesmerize the soul
There is always one addiction
That cannot be controlled...
Ah, thank you. Here's another long, drawn-out piece, though it doesn't overstay its welcome despite being about as simplistic as "OK" on the last album. Starting with the sublime tapping of echoing cymbals, and adding the gentle, floating sounds of keyboard, synthesizers, and the most fragile chord progression ever played on an electric guitar (well, at least on a rock album), this one turns out to be a case of still waters running deep. Paul gently croons about obsessions and addictions, things that humans spend their time on, and while it's unclear whether this is a case of man talking to God or God talking to man, the devotion he expresses is clear in those three simple words: "You are mine". It's not so much a possessive statement as it is an expression that, You are the one thing that I live for. It's very easy to get lost in the trance here, swaying gently back and forth to the rhythm of the album's gentlest song, even when the guitar is ringing out loud high notes and the scratchiness starts to overtake the silkiness in Paul's impassioned vocalizations near the end.

Picture
As I stare through a lens of tears
At what remains of those fallen years
Now in this frame, memories are held to persevere...
Here's another beautiful case, even more so than "Noticed", of an unabashedly sentimental song showing us that it means business when the band really gets into it. It starts off like a letter to a lost lover, the quick but gentle rhythm and Paul's hushed words blowing in at first like a gentle breeze through translucent curtains on a summer evening. The song as inspired by a picture, a memento of an event frozen in time, and as the song unfolds, we find out that it actually wasn't a very happy time for Paul, but looking back at this picture now, he gets this sense of how good "those fallen years" were for him and how it brought him to this person, perhaps - all part of the grand design. "In this photograph, we're safe", he promises the other person whose face is there in the photograph next to him, smiling. Darren King works up another winner of a rhythm here, giving the song a sort of new-age-but-urban sensibility (if such a thing is possible), and even tricking the band into playing a little bit of rhythmic hide-and-go-seek as he deviates a bit during the bridge. It's a great mix of mushy sentiment and solid groove. Why can't more bands show their softer side like this without wimping out on the music?

Stall Out
Racing on a fault line
Bracing for a landslide
Conscious of every move getting harder
Has the race gone underwater?
Mute Math goes sci-fi for the beginning of the last song, with nothing other than the gentle, melodic whirring of keyboard tones (think Radiohead's title track from Kid A, but less unsettling) to back up Paul's mysterious verse about some sort of an underwater car race in which he keeps falling behind. This song is actually a prayerful one, with Paul feeling worried that he's somehow not worthy of grace because he can't keep up with what God expects of Him. And yet God still assures him, repeatedly, as the song comes to its drawn-out climax - "We are still far from over." This would be the album's mellowest moment, if not for more of the relentless energy of Darren Kind, which isn't a bad thing - he just likes to fill in the space that would be provided by an ordinary 4/4 rhythm, and that keeps songs like this from getting too measured and lifeless, as a band like Coldplay might get toward the end of an album. This one's nearly as long as "Break the Same", but doesn't feel that way due to its beautiful, euphoric coda.

I guess it's just weird, getting lost in the leisurely sprawl of those last five songs, while the first four seem to fly by so quickly. You're halfway through Mute Math's musical utopia before you realize it, and since "Break the Same" has so much restraint to it, there's isn't much in terms of a solid "rock out" moment once the bridge of "Noticed" has come and gone. I don't mind chilling out for the last half, but it causes the album to stop just short of genius, because as wonderful as all of the sounds are, you more or less have the band pegged by somewhere around track 9 or 10. It'd be nice to have more of the album's genuine surprises show up late in the game.

Despite all this, Mute Math is a thoroughly addictive album that I can't tear myself away from, and nearly every song on it (out of the tracks which actually are songs) will probably come with deep, personal meaning attached to it by the end of 2006. I have my favorites, but this is not an album where I can be all about one or two songs and ignore the rest, just due to how seamlessly the whole thing flows. If the band can figure out how to maintain that sense of importance for each song, but work more songs into the mix, then they're really gonna have a doozy on their hands.

Well, the only way to get this thing now is either to order it through zambooie.com, or to attend one of the group's live shows, and if they hit up your town, I'd highly recommend dropping everything to go see them - you normally wouldn't expect bands who do so much computerized tweaking in the studio to be that impressive live, but these guys blow the roof off when they take the stage! The album should hit "stores" in the fall, and with it I'd imagine they'll get their shot at really making an impact upon retail and radio - it's anyone's guess whether a band using instruments almost entirely from the 70's and 80's will be able to pull that off in today's finicky climate. They're true originals, though, so I wish 'em the best of luck.

ALBUM WORTH:
Collapse $.50
Typical $1.50
After We Have Left Our Homes $0
Chaos $2
Noticed $1.50
Without It $1
Polite $0
Stare at the Sun $1.50
Obsolete $.50
Break the Same $1
You Are Mine $1.50
Picture $1.50
Stall Out $1.50
TOTAL: $14

Band Members:
Paul Meany: Vocals, keyboards, keytar, Atari
Greg Hill: Guitars
Darren King: Drums, samples, programming
Roy Mitchell-Cárdenas: Bass

Website: http://www.myspace.com/mutemath

Recommended: Yes