don’t know what this is. I want to like it. I’ve tried. I wrote a review a few days ago with a higher score, but I had to start over again. I just can’t like this.

At the monthly Stylus Magazine wine and cheese parties at Todd Burns’ luxurious trailer-cum-villa nestled in the Appalachians, I’ve often been overheard giving voice to my theory that we don’t really need numbers to rate music, and that all music is really pass or fail—either you like it, or you don’t. It’s not a popular theory in professional music reviewing circles, but I’ve stuck to it throughout my 35-year career. In this case, Skeletons have to receive a failing grade from me.

Skeletons approach orchestration in an interesting way. The first track on this disc reminds me of Taylor Deupree’s recent (re)discovery Piana: ultra-high-frequency microsound-esque loops mixed with straightforward, if repetitive, pop music. The following tracks make more use of drum machines, but clean-sounding guitars and vocals remain present throughout most of the music. At times there are even string quartet cameos. The total effect is what makes this music unclassifiable, in my book. It fits no genre clearly. Some tracks have a four-on-the-floor beat that reminds me more of !!! than any other form of dance music. Others have simple kitschy drumbeats that sound something like electro beats. The general song structure and timbre is poppy, but at times the songs loop on and on like minimalist music.

This interesting, or at the very least irregular, combination of genres is what appeals to me most about Life and the Afterbirth. But the problems are just too rampant to justify praising the orchestration. The vocals are weak and thin, more whiny than appealing. You know, in indie, there’s good whiny, and there’s bad whiny. This is the latter. The lyrics, which I will not reproduce here, are atrocious—and let me be clear, I consider even the Postal Service’s lyrical missteps endearing in their own way.

Other problems are found in the melodic content. Although the melodies are intended to be poppy, they are far from catchy or, for that matter, well developed. Few of the songs will stick in your head for long, I fear. Therefore the inventiveness of a string quartet repeating the melodic patterns is a useless exercise. Most damning of all, I feel, is the attempted emulation of Loveless-era MBV, evident in the layered sounds that Skeletons employ. The murky multitracking of MBV results in a swarming, mutable mass of quivering timbres—almost like additive synthesis, in a primitive way. The layered samples, guitars, vocals, drum machines, and other instruments stacked up by Skeletons are too thin and uneventful. The layering comes off as a foolish pastiche, a lifeless imitation.

I have to applaud their attempt. I really do. There is something that remains in this album. Something about the melding of avant-garde microsound and indie rock that predicts a few developments that we’ll see in music in the next few years. All you really need to listen to, though, is the first track.