The Garden
The Life and Times of a Paper Clip
Burger Records
Street: 07.23
The Garden = Hunx and His Punx + The Modern Lovers
The Garden write some very interesting riffs. In fact, both the drum work and the guitar work on “The Life and Times of a Paperclip” feature some surprisingly progressive moments—an interesting departure from the simple garage-style fare which Burger Records are known for. Unfortunately, there isn’t too much else to say about The Garden’s compositional abilities, due to the fact that this album is an assortment of half-decent ideas, rather than songs. There are 16 tracks on this record which amount to little more than a run-through of a riff for about 30 seconds to a minute. The vocals, which sound like a tone-deaf Jonathan Richman, don’t help either—particularly when the lyrics are just “I see a goose egg” or “there goes the rocket” over and over again. Sometimes brevity is the soul of wit, but, in this case, it seems more like a lack of anything to contribute. –Gregory Gerulat