REVIEW: Enon, Believo! (SeeThru Broadcasting)
- Matthew Carlin
Combining the avant-garde and pop is always a risky prospect. When it fails, it fails miserably. When it works, it kicks major ass. And Enon kicks major ass. Along with drummer Steve Calhoon and sound manipulator/junk percussionist Rick Lee of Skeleton Key, former Brainiac guitarist John Schmersal creates splendidly twisted experimental pop ditties that never descend into avant wankery.
Not unlike Skeleton Key, Enon uses unorthodox found sounds, samples and old records to augment what are at their core, clever, musical tunes. Schmersal's lovely, refreshingly non-lead singerish voice and inventive guitar playing drives electro quirk pop ditties like the album's stand-out "Conjugate the Verbs," as well as "Come Into" and "Get the Letter Out." Schmersal's impressive falsetto can be angelic, as on the layered vocals of "World in a Jar," or haunting, like the Portishead-meets-"Twin Peaks" soundscape "Cruel."
While the more overtly experimental tracks are a bit weak, the goofy drum-and-bass/synth pop freak out "For the Sum of It" actually works smashingly well, and the blips and bleeps and vocoder vocals on "Biofeedback" eschew mere lame kitsch value thanks to Calhoon's super-solid beats. If only radio stations were bold enough to play pop music this intelligent and interesting, the world would be a better place.
