Not to get Seinfeldian, but why do bands have to have their names spelled a certain way? How exactly do you pronounce hed.pe or emphatically command Panic at the Disco! (?) Do you always have to say Therapy? like it’s a question? (I’m…Ron Burgundy?) Well, whatever’s in a name, VOICEs VOICEs makes for an involving listen if anything else — there’s as much of a focus on an artistic collaboration between the two as there is a strictly musical one, a union that sounds more experimental and free than any bands these days which often fall apart as a result of unretentive democracy. In songs like “Flulyk Visions”, the vocals are draped over instruments of all kinds: ambient, New Wave-ish keys, twangy, distorted guitars, the white noise crash of symbols. It may remind you of Pelican, Hammock, any number of post-proggers.  A nice break from the bubblegummy, uber-melodic dinkering a lot of these keyboard-obsessed bands of late are doing, overzealous in their attempts to sound like Kajagoogoo or Missing Persons.

VOICEs VOICEs – Flulyk Visions (Radio Edit)

A lot of the time the vocals are almost spoken word, these sort of vocal wanderings that are laid down on top of each other, while a conglomeration of different instruments undertakes similar efforts in the background– all in the attempt to get you to either delve into the stream of consciousness with them (check out “Flulyk Visions”), or get your butt shakin’ to the dance groove (see “In Armies”). The experimental road is full of twists and turns and can throw the listener off. To complete the cheesy cliche, it’s a trip worth taking, if only for its unpredictable, proggy goodness, demons of a certain somber yet addictive spell songwriters Nico and Jenean have woven.

Words by Jeff Nau