Tripp Algiers

 “Autumn Drive” by Tripp Algiers, from Old City Crows (BeatOven):

Tripp Algiers drummer Drew Burasco operates the locals-only label (Beat­Oven) that his own band calls home. Burasco has compared BeatOven to a fledgling SubPop, and Tripp Algiers also follows an early-to-mid-'90s business model, conjuring flashbacks to Pavement's nonchalant harmonies and Stone Temple Pilots' "Big Empty" guitars. The quartet dabbles with jazz and blues on "Irish Pub Song," demonstrating that these genres aren't especially compatible with reedy-voiced indie-rock singers. The production occasionally feels thin, with submerged bass lines and obscured vocals, and the instrumental cohesion sometimes feels slightly askew. The fact that these nine tracks end gracefully signals a devotion to composition — tossed-together songs often finish with fades or unsure repetition — but the execution doesn't yet match the ambition. Tripp Algiers creates a few sharp instrumental passages — the cutting guitar salvos and squiggly solos of "Corporate's Ladder," the "Empty Glasses" plinked to yield xylophone tones — but often, Old City Crows sounds clumsy, like the work of a group that's either willfully sloppy (in true Pavement fashion) or still in the early stages of development.