Solid State Neo-Hedonist is one of those rare indie debut releases that sounds like anything but a debut, and anything but an indie release.
Pistol for Ringo display a propensity for the sophisticated both in lyrics and production, eschewing the obvious while still working within commercial pop/rock structures. The impact can take a while to set in, as on the opener, "Nothing Equates to a Saturday," whose labyrinthine lyrics include the album's peculiar title. Indeed, frequently the album reads almost like a postmodern novel, chief songwriter Brian Murphy offering lines like "What if we acknowledged the sources of our torment?" on the strong rock cut "Masochistic." Those words are married to immediate riffs, tasteful drum loops, and liberal sprinkles of electronic icing, resulting in a sound familiar yet unique, Steve Arm's accompanying vocals being garden-variety but up to the task. The unusually lighthearted "Complicated" and the vivid "Hero" stand out as particularly fine tracks, with only "I Am the Fly" approaching misstep territory. A cluster of brief segues exist merely as self-indulgences that add to neither the flow nor the meaning of the record, though with them,
Pistol for Ringo seem to desire a unifying concept on it.
Solid State Neo-Hedonist is no concept album, but the band demonstrates an ambition in its creation that suggests their potential for making an unreservedly great dream pop/rock album. ~ Joseph McCombs