“They say ‘You’re 25’ / ‘You’re young and alive’ / I just squint my eyes”, Paul Museum sings at the start of the appropriately brief and antsy “Midlife Crisis”, the barely-over-a-minute-long opener from this Texas punk group’s first album following a three-year hiatus. Full of bratty numbskull humor, Eye Times features an energetic band of fellas who run through the album’s 13 tracks as if they can’t wait to tackle the next song. That doesn’t mean attitude trumps form here, though, for Wax Museums’ impatient thrash ‘n bash rhythms hold together quite well, and they are supplemented by dramatic stops, the occasional heads-down mid-tempo groover, and some unexpected production touches (check out the laser gun-sounding sonic overload that marks the bridge and outro sections to “Nothing to Do (With the ’60s)” ). By no means is Eye Times high art (and the dumb lyrical jokes can veer from charming to just plain lame in the course of a single song), but if cheap, fleeting thrills are what you are looking for, this record delivers just fine.
Wax Museums: Eye Times
Wax Museums
Trouble in Mind
2011-06-28