Soul Coughing

Soul Coughing just may be rap rock's great white hope – emphasis on the maybe. El Oso,
the New York quartet's third album, finds it losing the tug of war between avant-garde
adventurousness and alt-rock accessibility, Despite the bouncy guitar sproing! of the single
"Circles," which should appeal to Dave Matthews fans, El Oso returns to the band's more
out-there leanings. It's a tack that doesn't play to Soul Coughing's strengths. For i... More >

They wish they could call it Il Oso, counterposing parallel verticals against circle-squiggle-circle palindrome in a visualization of their true passion: abstraction. They can't, of course, Spanish is Spanish just like groove is groove, and because they know the fundamental things apply, their abstractions still hit you in the gut. Voice-keyb-bass up top are distinct and autonomous constituents, a cable not a gumbo, with the upright romanticism of Sebastian Steinberg and try-anything soundplay of Mark De Gli Antoni providing human touch--as they'd better, because rather than anchoring or signposting, M. Doughty's words establish his intelligence and then bounce us back into the aural construct for emotion and such. You may say you pine for his sarcasm. But he'll just wonder if you thought he'd be corny forever. (Grade: A-)