You run a certain risk when taking the “indie-pop” route to making music. A good album requires inherently catchy tunes with pop sensibility and a unique sound. On Pardon Me, Are Those Your Claws On My Back, the Faceless Werewolves walk the line between good indie pop and just plain boring. For the most part, the band is largely successful, but the album does cover the entire range of “catchy” to “skip!” in a quick 36 minutes. I might sound a little “pitchforky” here, but isn’t that the state of indie music today? A fine line between catchy, interesting and fun, and boring weird and annoying?

Before we get into the nitty gritty, let’s talk about the “sound” of the album. I’ll just lay it on you: it sounds great. Usually a band’s first few records are a challenge to listen to: can you mine the good music out of a terrible recording? But the Werewolves have a stunningly great sound for their second album. The drums carry the lively mix, and the guitars fill it out nicely, though still allowing the vocals room to shine. Looks like the folks over at The Bubble (here in Austin) know how to handle themselves behind the board. For the band, while having a mature sound certainly helps them to get high marks, it also presents a challenge: if the final product doesn’t quite meet standards, there’s no blaming it on the recording.

The band dodges that bullet, for the most part, as a good majority of the songs succeed, at least in the “indie-pop” sense of the word. The opener and title-track can compete with anything on Pitchfork’s forkast, or anything playing in American Apparel (or Buffalo exchange, for you cheap-ass indie kids). The music is simple and effective, driving the song during the verses with catchy riffs and filling the voids between lyrics with even catchier ones. The lyrics are fun, and self-referential (which is why I love the Hold Steady): “Hide you children, lock your doors, the Faceless Werewolves want more!” The rest of the song reads like a goofy description of literally being a “party animal.”

If the rest of the songs sounded exactly like this one, or even if the next eleven tracks were this same song, we’d be talking about my favorite new album. But they’re not. Nothing quite tops the fun and catchy lyrics or music of the first track. That’s not to say the other tracks are bad, because they’re not. “You Got Me Howlin’” is another stand out track. The song can barely contain all the groovin’ the bass has gotten into, and the lyrics retreat back to the insincerity of the first track (I can’t imagine what “howlin’” could refer to… but it apparently “took some time, took some cryin’”).

Other songs can’t quite keep the energy up, like “Ofelia,” which I really hope is not Hamlet-inspired. For the most part, slowing down equals bad idea. And so does meandering guitar solo (see “Big City Sound”). But unfortunately, these songs have all the same ingredients as the stand-out tracks (driving rhythms, simple guitar riffs, etc.), but any listener can point out a “catchy” song in one listen, and in this genre that’s almost all that counts.

Here’s my point: The first track could hold its own with anything of its kind in any scene you can name. The rest of the tracks are a good support, but to really “make it” in this genre, you’ve got to have an album filled to the brim with Track 1’s, something that fizzes over with catchy riffs and solid-gold lyrics.

Normally at the end of reviews I add some “can’t wait to see another release from [insert band here]!” Usually, that’s just awful writing; if I hated the album so much that I wouldn’t listen to a follow-up, I wouldn’t be writing about it in the first place. But with Pardon Me, the Faceless Werewolves have made an album that literally makes me giddy about hearing more material from this band. If they can capitalize on their skills to write the kind of stuff indie-pop is made of, which they clearly exhibit in smaller doses, there’s no telling how soon you’ll hear ‘em while shopping for $35 V-necks

Austin Sound

This Album Review of Faceless Werewolves - Pardon Me, Are Those Your Claws On My Back? originally appeared here on Austin Sound but is the original work of the author.