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The Passive Aggressives
Conflict Resolution
Dead Fish
Filled with car crashes, circling vultures and girls in short dresses fading into the night, the Passive Aggressives' compositions are made up of all the dark iconography of hard-boiled pulp novels. But while the subject matter may summon the works of Jim Thompson, the songs themselves are unpredictable musical excursions that venture from metal to jazz to classic American hard rock. Led by the fetching and strong-voiced Keren Gaiser, this Bay Area band's greatest strength is their sonic fearlessness. "Soundtrack To The Voices In My Head" is fueled by libidinous hard rock riffs; "Don't Want To Be You" begins as a prog rock number but takes a plaintive detour and "All We've Got Is Now" is a funk-filled workout that finds Gaiser lamenting we're, "Bound by time/The same old crimes." Elsewhere, "Just Believe" whips away with intensity; "Lulla-Bye Nation" is a spare, ukulele-flecked number that showcases the sheer beauty of Gaiser's range and the band's fevered reading of "Happy Together" transforms one of the most ebullient pop songs of all time into a panting and lusty blast of deliciously drooling sonic foreplay.
—Alex Green
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