The Impossible Shapes

Despite the fact that the Impossible Shapes are distantly related (something like second-cousins once removed) to the Elephant 6 collective (Olivia Tremor Control, Apples in Stereo), they successfully avoid sounding too much like the students of the famed Athens, Georgia, indie school of rock. Off to a prolific start with four releases in three years, the band has earned favorable comparisons to Pavement and Robert Pollard. But that's not to say that the group's music is without its own merit. Evidently, in college, these guys skipped over the grunge phenomenon in favor of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys to craft warm and inviting music, with gentle but sinister atmospherics lurking behind it. As far from the Midwestern sound as the nearest palm tree, the Impossible Shapes evoke that stillness-before-a-tornado feeling that might make us excited, at least for half an hour, to be in Kansas.