ontrary to popular opinion, critics don’t like to rip albums to shreds, especially unassuming albums like Stings and Dum Machines. Athanasios Argianas, the man behind Gavouna, clearly spent a long time on this album. Every piano flourish and violin moan trickled out of his mind after hours if not days of deliberation. Every track is so meticulously arranged that the listener senses that Stings… is indeed a labor of love. Yet after a few listens, I was tempted to spew some venom. This album sounds so inoffensive, so tepid that I assumed it had to have a rotten core. But better judgment overcame reactionary spite. I popped the disc in a couple more times and the intricacy of Argianas’ tracks began to win me over.

But not completely. The flaws that grated my ears on first listen remained. If this album were titled Stings and Pinos, Gavouna would be on the right track. He saves the best of his musical ideas for the classical instruments. Unfortunately he instead gives percussion equal billing. Throughout the album the rhythm sections are overwritten yet still bland—no small feat. A wild assortment of xylophones, cymbals, clacking sticks, maracas, rattles, hand drums, and titular drum machines clutters most every track, with the notable exception of standouts of “Ondespiece” and “Lament (Kittenplan A).”

Despite the abundance of percussion in each track, the drumming never commands attention. Rather it plods along innocently, robbing the brooding piano of its bravura and sucking the mystery from the swooping violins. But I’ll reserve the harshest words for the shaken percussion. One can only shake something so many ways. The overuse of maracas and the like creates a superficial sense of similarity to many of the tracks that produced the bad first impression. Basically, if some prudent editor removed half the percussion instruments and all the shaken ones from this release, we’d have ourselves a sterling little album. Instead, it’s a little tarnished.

Still, Gavouna brings so many good ideas to the table that these flaws don’t carry the day. The piano and string arrangements are uniformly excellent and impeccably recorded. The bass synths pop out leisurely melodies effortlessly. And subtle digital production techniques enliven the tracks.

Argianas deserves special acclaim for breathing new life into sci-fi, BBC Radiophonic workshop-style analogue synth sounds. His synths swirl into the atmosphere like a rocket’s vapor trail and wail eerily like wayward ghosts. In another context, such effects would sound dated, but among Gavouna’s stately arrangements, the listener can sense the reverence with which Argianas approaches his inspirations. Argianas’ sincerity forces us to go beyond the eye-rolling that accompanies suspected retro fetishism and approach his sound effects as a child listening to a robots-’n-space epic would.

Great tracks pepper Stings and Dum Machines. “Italians (1939)” opens strong with a pleasantly lifeless bass thump and popping drum machine, creating just the right backbone for the spirited piano and distant, glistening effects. “Sherman” starts with a piano that sounds recorded off a long-dead radio program before spreading a fuzzy swath of warm synth across the track like a blanket. A quivering, almost-too-high synth tone prevents the track from lapsing into bedtime music, until the fuzzy synth congeals into an imposing wall of sound. Finally the piano emerges from the past amidst solar wind synths and ends the track with a sparse, pensive melody. And “Ondespiece” sounds like a theremin-and-disembodied-moanvoice soundtrack to an F.W. Murnau film. Can’t go wrong with that.

And you really can’t go wrong with Stings and Dum Machines. It won’t reach out and grab you by the throat, and it won’t leave tears of beauty streaking down your face—that’s not what Gavouna’s about. This album yields slow, subtle dividends with careful listening. Just try to ignore the rattles.