Quasi

Quasi put the "rock" in rocky relationships. The third release from this sardonic Portland,
Oregon, ex-husband-and-wife duo (an updated Captain and Tennille?) hides gut-wrenching
heartache and despair inside sugary vocal harmonies and catchy, succinct songwriting.
Sam Coomes' George Martinesque keyboard work burbles and ducks around the blustery
drumming of Janet Weiss (who also plays in Sleater-Kinney), their voices conjoin... More >

Unlike most young quasi-intellectuals with a keyb and a tune sense, Sam Coomes isn't too cool to sing from his own experience. Bitter but not self-indulgent about it, he's better on wage slavery, which he hates, than on love, which he merely finds wanting, and peaks when he explains how they intersect on the profoundly weary "It's Hard To Turn Me On." Nor would he give off so much life without the furious drumming of Sleater-Kinney's own Janet Weiss, who no doubt found it harder to turn him on when she was his wife. (Grade: A-)