Pleaseeasaur :: The Yellow Pages-All Music Guide (AMG)
2004-03-02
ALL MUSIC GUIDE (AMG)
"Pizza Brothers & Sons Incorporated" is a nice representative sampling of Pleaseeasaur's Yellow Pages. As what sounds like a dance remix of a corporate training video soundtrack diddles in the background, vocalist JP Hasson demystifies the curiosities of the titular establishment ("He's from the wrong side of the tracks/He grew up spoiled to the max/But as you can clearly tell/We're brothers with one thing on our mind/That's pizza!"), rips on decor clichés like "pictures of Sicily," and generally cracks wise about bottom line-craving pizza parlors' blatant attempts at hominess. Is it good music? Well, it's definitely funny -- Hasson sounds like the geeky alter ego of Fun Lovin' Criminals' Huey doing a Frank Zappa impersonation with the aid of an estate sale Casio keyboard. He plays ladies man on "Let's Lay Down," but when the track ends abruptly after 47 seconds, it's easy to imagine Hasson and his pals laughing too hard to continue. There's the fun infomercial rock of "Bowl Noodle Hot," as well as "Warning: These Cobras Are Totally Cool," which never quite gets going but seems to be a reminder to not step on snakes because they're actually really fun guys. In between this sort of buffoonery are a series of apparent mood pieces, like "Robots Bite Down Gently" -- where a tense piano line duets with a Speak & Spell -- or closer "Gentle Results," which is three-plus minutes of cracked genius static cling keyboard loops. Pleaseeasaur doesn't purposefully aggravate like Atom & His Package or temper its shenanigans with actual rocking like the Dead Milkmen. In fact, there's no tangible reason for Yellow Pages to exist, except as a slightly malfunctioning sounding board for disguised cultural musings ("Make an Indian Your Friend") and rudimentary electronic minimalism. In the end, the question of whether it's good or not remains largely unanswered, mostly because you're guffawing over lines like "Pizza Brothers & Sons Incorporated/We make 'em hot/We make 'em great/'Cause when we toss 'em/They turn out awesome." -- Johnny Loftus
