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The sound is so scrawny it can wear on you, meaning their 34-minute album is probably two songs too long. But there's only one I'd scrap.
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Run through with kitschy soundbites from retro sci-fi flicks and news broadcasts, a few tracks expand the band’s musical palate ('Sonic You' is their first downright lovely tune) but the rest sink into a predictable groove of dumpy bass-lines and puckish drum fills, and mining far less satisfyingly sassy lyrical territory than the band’s debut.
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The Coathangers keep the back-alley post-punk party going strong on a scratchy, shrieky, foul-mouthed sophomore album, Scramble, their first for Seattle-based Suicide Squeeze.
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It’s gimmicky on some level, and maybe formally confined, but the absurdity of these songs can’t mask their joy and evident catharsis.
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Priding themselves on being a tightly-knit foursome, the Coathangers sport a solidarity in their songwriting that easily comes across on Scramble.
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The 15-song album feels a few tracks too long, but its quotidian WTF?-ness is quite attractive.
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Scramble is a very solid record, but if anything it shows us the Coathangers’ talents have outgrown their humble garage sound.
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If it weren't for the stalker-punk of 'Pussywillow' and 'Time Passing', both glowering oddly from the mess and nodding towards early B-52s, we'd shove this in the wardrobe.