Those who loved the dense noisiness of
los Halos' self-titled debut album will be startled (and perhaps disappointed) by their sophomore effort, which is sparer, more acoustic, and more introspective. This band is too arty to offer anything as conventional or helpful as a lyric sheet or even a personnel listing, but it is centered around someone who writes and sings as Mr. Samezvous, who strums a guitar and is accompanied by keyboards and sometimes by strangely recorded drums (as on the album's pretty, country-inflected title track, which also features the best two-note guitar solo in this decade), and sings in a mopy, understated voice that rarely rises above a stage whisper. Mr. Samezvous has some kind of obsession with sin and redemption, and his songs are the better for it; on "My Heart as an Arrow" he muses on humanity's inevitable failure to achieve divinity over a simple acoustic-guitar-and-organ accompaniment; on "Will You Go to Heaven?" he asks the title question, over and over with little elaboration, for about six minutes and makes it sound wonderful. To call this mope-rock would be a great oversimplification -- he's asking too many serious questions for that, and expresses too much cheerfulness despite himself (imagine a different voice singing "Easy. As You're Waiting"). On the other hand, it's not exactly going to get your party started. There's a nice hidden track at the end of "Will You Go to Heaven?" but he's not telling what it's called.