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The Vestals 2004
Minnesotans the Vestals bring an impressively vast array of influences to bear upon their eponymous debut of 2004, baffling any observer as to whether they may qualify as post-punk, post-alternative, post-new wave, or just plain post-everything! Led by eager-to-compete brothers Jeremy and Ben Gordon, the album generally alternates between two quite varied but still rather discernible strategies, and the fact that neither one is the exclusive specialty of any one brother is perhaps the most astonishing thing about them. On the one hand, songs like "Telescope," "Childhood Timeouts," and the engaging "Forever, It's True" combine dreamy strums and laid-back rhythms with an ever-so-creepy haunting feeling -- then tops it all with power pop-suited vocals that would do both Cheap Trick and Big Star proud. On the other hand, jaunty tracks like "Three Girls Ago," "Another Way to Kill Me," and "Face the Ground" dive headlong into the sort of bouncy, vocal harmony-rich, neo-psychedelia that fans of Jellyfish or Ben Folds will jump to embrace. Slicing the album in half, "Before the Color Dries" uses lush backing string arrangements for an effect that most would describe as "Eleanor Rigby"-lite, and ending the proceedings, the acoustic lullaby "Someday" strikes a tenuous balance between excessive cheese and heartfelt beauty. In the end, the overarching influence of the Beatles (also splattered all over the memorable "Too Late to Say Goodbye") is impossible to ignore here. Regardless, the Vestals' thoroughly modern flavor allows them to bring an undeniably personal (and wonderfully quirky) voice to these very familiar formulas, making for a vastly enjoyable debut. All Music Guide
Songs About Girls 2006
The self-titled 2004 debut album by Minnesota pop quartet the Vestals was hampered a bit by its democratic structure. Singing/songwriting brothers Ben Gordon and Jeremy Gordon were clearly both talented songsmiths, but in widely contrasting styles: Ben's songs sounded immersed in the entire history of British pop music, from the Beatles and Kinks to XTC and Oasis, while Jeremy's taste for fuzzy guitars and monotone vocals felt more indebted to the shoegazer scene. The brothers still write separately on Songs About Girls.and Other Mysteries, but this time out, they're on the same stylistic page, and the resulting album is a far more cohesive affair. This is power pop of the more ornate stripe, far closer in spirit to the wide-ranging influences and textured arrangements of Jellyfish and the Posies' Dear 23 than the likes of Big Star or the Raspberries. The songs are consistently tuneful, with lyrics that sidestep the usual boy/girl clichés while the vocals mostly remain in the usual winsome high-register style, with enough change-ups like the playful snark of "Drag to Be You" to keep things from getting tiresome. More importantly, the band knows the value of concision in power pop: only two of the 14 songs break the four-minute point, the traditional mark of death that usually means the band is repeating a dull chorus for 90 seconds in the mistaken belief that they're driving a hook home instead of being terribly boring. Happily, boring is one thing this fine album is not. All Music
