Pinback - Information Received

So exactly what do you do when you're playing alternative rock and the press keeps calling you things like "tasteful", "heavenly" and "uniformly gorgeous"? If you're Rob Crow and Zach Smith of Pinback, you don't change a thing. Information Received (October 16, Temporary Residence), the band's fifth album in a dozen years and first since '07's fine Autumn of the Seraphs, is another example of the San Diego duo's imaginative and refined alt/rock with progressive touches, impressive instrumental artistry and an uncanny ear for bringing an opaquely abstract melody into the mix. Surely no band pulls its punches with such lithe, graceful moves; it's as if the album was conceived in a parental controlled basement, where songs that might be played with full-throttle bluster must be performed with a more sophisticated, low-wattage approach. New track "His Phase" is definitive Pinback, an angular, minor chord melodic structure that's lean and sinewy rather than beefy and muscular, vocals that don't roar but hit the mark with a sleek, far more subtle accuracy. Catch the ultra-cool vocal interplay and stuttered bass-and-drum rhythmic interplay of "Proceed to Memory."

Pinback - "His Phase" (From Information Received)

Pinback - "Proceed to Memory" (From Information Received)