Giraffes? Giraffes!- More Skin With Milk-Mouth[2007]

In the realm of mathy noise duos, Giraffes? Giraffes! can proudly claim a spot alongside Hella and Lightning Bolt. G?G! are more accessible than either of the other two, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's watered-down. The songs have more structure, or at the very least, fall into recognizable rhythms, but the phrasing and structure are still as wild and unpredictable as ever.

"More Skin With Milk-Mouth" is a more professional and concentrated excursion than their prior LP "Superbass!", but keeps the barely-controlled chaos. "When the Catholic Girls Go Camping, the Nicotine Vampires Rule Supreme" gives you a taste of what this album's all about- weird titles, and some crazy stuff going on all over. Effects are used to great effect here, with the guitar swinging into a blazing overdrive midway through, and not letting up until the track screeches to a halt.
"I Am S/H(im)e[r] As You Am S/H(im)e[r] As You Are Me And We Am I And I Are All Our Together: Our Collective Consciousness' Psych(my track name cuts off here)" boasts the craziest name, but is surprisingly the most docile of any of the tracks here. A latin-tinged mathy intro leads into gently plucked guitar, backed by a glockenspiel. After several minutes of calm, the track builds back up as the percussion comes back in and the distortion comes back on until a spoken-word sample on lucid dreaming interrupts some furious snare-pounding and tapping.

"The Ghost of EPPEEPEE's Ghost" is kind of fun, but doesn't really do anything. It's more of a segue built out of guitar chimes and the kind of drumming you'd hear at the very end of an metal show. As soon as it ends, the hammering pulse of "Emilie Sagee's Secret" runs forward. This is easily the most active of all their songs, replete with nonstop hammered arpeggios and handclaps, but another unexpected turn comes along, and it ducks back into a bunch of guitar chugs and squeals with a spooky little glockenspiel part until a final crazy sprint toward the end. Closer "A Quick One, While She's Away" is probably my favorite on the album- it's acrobatic, yet calm, and it has a lot of distinct phases. 1) the rollicking intro, which bounces into 2) the acoustic section, with some cool slide work in the mix, followed by 3)a bunch of feedback and power chords, punctuated by 4) the arpeggios around 5:30. After 6) some buzzing riffage, the intro rhythm is brought back in and looped to provide a background for 7)the reverb-laden outro, in which the guitar makes a lot of noise.

"More Skin With Milk Mouth" is light on the math, light on the noise, but heavy on rhythm and great hooks. It's a good place to dive into math-rock, mostly because it's closer to rock than it is to math. Check out "Superbass" for something a little less structured but a little less developed.