The Delicious

In response to the over-intellectualized, exclusive world of high art, singer/guitarist David Woodruff dropped out of art school to form The Delicious. With accessibility and sincerity as its goals, the Delicious craft strangely accessible indie-art-pop in their own complex, honest, light-hearted, and well-equipped fashion. Their disjointed pop sensibility combined with high-minded, jazz-degree-carrying musicianship results in an album that is complex and mathematical, yet always tasteful, unpretentious, and addictive. The group's first release for Joyful Noise, Postcard to My Sewing Circle, is chock-full of elegantly constructed power-pop - able to impress math-rock enthusiasts, jazz purists, and indie-rock snobs alike.

The referential and oftentimes hilarious lyrics are a perfect complement to the bubbly, punchy neon sound on this EP. Take as a random sampling a line from the first track Hokusai, which references Miles Davis, abstract pop art, formalism and a famous painting by Rene Magritte - and actually manages to make it sound funny and off the cuff. For the average listener without a background in art history this name dropping and peppering of sophistication will just sound off-kilter and weird; for the initiated they come off as almost rip-roaringly funny. Lines like, "Don't put it past a monster to appropriate self-portraiture," present us with paradoxes of such Byzantine weirdness that one might find oneself still trying to piece it all together days later. This band's cachet has also been illimitably enhanced by its lead-singer's Civil War era/Salvador Dali style mustache. Postcard To My Sewing Circle is an EP that's fun and bliss-inducing the first time through, with an enticing depth that will encourage many repeated listens.