Seriously: What's going on? I take Excepter apart and look at all the pieces they're made up of. These pieces are lame. In sections, Excepter sucks. What is this band anyway? They're the most primitive beats overlayed with random synth scribble and a dude moaning. By all logical reasoning, Excepter should be unlistenable. But they aren't and I just don't get it. Excepter has learned that most enviable ability of making music that is greater than its parts. How, I have no idea.
Excepter have the curious distinction of almost always being viewed in association with The No-Neck Blues Band due to the former affiliation of John Fell Ryan. (Aside: "John" and "Ryan" are both pretty commonplace, boring names but they're pretty cool when they get put together. When you stick "Fell" in between them, they become, like, the raddest name ever.) I certainly came to Excepter through NNCK, as I'm sure the majority of their fanbase did. Despite the two bands being completely divergent, you can't help but draw comparisons; the greatest of which is both bands play music that is decidely non-musical. The complaint most often leveled at NNCK is "Dude, this sounds like us jamming in your basement." Yeah, well... It does but it's intangibly different. Excepter sounds like us jamming in your basement with synths and drums machines.
Opener "Ice Cream Van" and "The 'Rock' Stepper" are the album's most fully realized songs. "Ice Cream Van" has your classic four-on-the-floor house beat and vocals which you almost think must have been thought out and written before the fact. At least until the band breaks into a recitation of "Do Your Ears Hang Low." "The 'Rock' Stepper" is the obvious single here. A fairly complex beat is covered in two-note loops sounding like a 7 year-old Steve Reich. JFR has obviously written the lyrics here and he delivers them with enough apathy to make him sound just so cool. Meanwile across town, "Knock Knock" and "Apt. Living" patrol the same minimalist creepiness with thier droning keys and slow tempos. The final two tracks "Op Pop" and "'Back Me Up' (Show)" are the most complex tracks, together consuming a third of the album's running time. The long tracks are continually layered and layered with more sounds before they break. The final minutes of "Op Pop" finds Excepter stumbling on a beat which is arguably the album's finest moment. "'Back Me Up' (Show)" is strange due to the constant manic layering of sounds and the extreme tension built up: It seems at any moment the band is going to bust the song wide open with their most massive, impressive, concussive beat but it never comes.
Personal album highlight "If I Were You" is among the simplest and most direct songs on the album. I've listened to this song obsessively, dozens of times since the band began streaming the video on their site a few months back. It's so simple and skeletal and stupid. But it's great. I contend that the endlessly quotable intro couplet "I'd like to introduce our machines to you but I forgot their names/I'd like to shake hands with each and every one of you but I'm on stage" makes it. Listening to it a few nights ago in my bedroom, a friend said "I could make music like this." And it's true. Anyone with Fruity Loops and a mic can make music like Excepter. Like. And that's what makes Excepter a great band: No matter how much you try to sound like them, you're still going to be missing that thing; the thing that no one will ever identify; the thing that makes Excepter so interesting and vital; the thing that brings them out of your basement.
