Beasts for A While Review from Gumshoe Grove

Another interesting review of Beasts for a While from Gumshoe Grove with extra plugs for Matt Minters artwork, our love for inexpensive synths, and a few extra Collection mp3s if you visit the real blog post and not just my reposting below...

"First, before you read another WORD, listen to that first MP3 up there ^^^ … this is the unintentional sequel to “April Showers” (by Grove longtimers Tonstartssbandht), a vocal smash-terpiece as intruiging as lie detector tests are faulty. If some of you have lamented this site is too weird/obscure/out-there, check out “Pitter Patter Treat” and hear the exact point where (potential) popular appeal and small-run weirdness intersect. Smashing.
Now that we have that out of the way, allow me to unveil my first 11-inch LP (and it’s red, to boot): Beasts for While, by Collection Of The Late Howell Bend (who also have a split with old warlords Warmer Milks notching their collective belt), a band with one of those names you just have to investigate (just did a Wiki search and found nada).
Where to begin? Side A of Beasts is executed perfectly. This is music you didn’t know you needed to hear, but did. Launching with an Andy Ortmann, science-lab feel, the marble slab of psych sprawls out like bushy-blonde hair from there. Soft-lens, post-Cocorosie, pre-Espers, micro-Spires That From The Sunset Rise, Lou Reed-style ghost-folk with cheapo synths scratched out from a cave studio?
YES, more please! Spreading this one, super-specific idea over an entire LP side might seem like a stretch, literally, but it’s more than enough to diddle your dreams. It’s like 39 Clocks hijacked a sinking ship and started shooting off guns and letting Wesley Willis play synths.
Side B is almost as ripe. Nimble, tip-toeing strings dance about as — you didn’t forget! — SYNTHS yip and yap, lapping up the open spaces of the composition and contrasting interestingly with the rhythmic bow swipes. Some more of those dead-mouth vocals slip out of the mix like the squeak of a balloon emptying or a dolphin “a-gha-gha-gha”-ing, and those will determine the extent of your enjoyment of Side Deaux.
That AND a last-minute change-up into repetitive, murky drone-synth territory that only helps Beasts for While make its case for your time and space. Very different from the rest of the LP; a drifting glacier makes its way through salty waters ever so slowly, staying cool even as the rest of the earth heats. Oneohtrix Point Never, Mudboy, Editions Mego alumni et al; you get the drill before I even tell you any more, right?
Don’t let life, or good limited-run records, pass-ass-ass you by, brother."