Mouse About- Mouse About Review

Artist: Mouse About
Title: Mouse About
Website: http://www.mouseabout.net
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/mouseabout
Style: Alternative/Rock/Pop
Lineup: Peter O'Dowd (guitar, keyboard, vocals), John Cassibry (bass), Shane Kullberg, (drums, vocals)
Rating: 7 out of 10
By C.W. Ross

 

Mouse About hails from the indie music hotbed of Austin, Texas. On their MySpace page the band list under their musical influences as everyone from, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and AC/DC, to Johnny Cash, Elliot Smith, and Public Enemy. As you might imagine with such an eclectic list their music is very hard to pigeonhole into one particular style.

 

I could hear everything from alternative, rock, 60's pop, punk, ska and jazz in the songs. The one constant that run through the whole release though was a moody undertone. I'm not sure exactly what it's from. Maybe its the deep vocal tones or the unusual sounds found in some of the songs.

 

For any conspiracy theorist out there here's a mystery to ponder. There's no track 10 listed on the CD's packaging. One the CD case's label it skips listing track-10 going from track-9 straight to track-11.

 

At first I thought maybe this was similar to what a lot of hotels do, not having a 13th floor elevator button due to superstition. My question were quickly answered though when I checked the CD and found all of the tracks listed correctly, and it was just a printing error, or was it?

 

Now back to the important stuff, the music. This self-titled release from Mouse About does a really nice job of mixing styles to create their own unique sound and kept the songs sounding fresh. Being an old trumpeter I also enjoyed the trumpet work found on several of the songs provided by Steven Welch.

 

This band has a bit of an offbeat side that comes through in the song lyrics. On their MySpace site when answering the question what their music sounded like they gave the answer, " Like garbage, not the band ".

 

If you have a desire for something a little bit off of the beaten music path, with an edge of quirkiness, then Mouse About's self-titled release is for you.