On their forthcoming album So Much for Romance, brother and sister Ben and Sarah Cohen weave immaculately conceived harmonies into shimmering vistas of love lost. With bandmate Sam Woldenberg, the siblings make up the Toledo, Ohio band The Antivillains. Their new album is nostalgic but ahistorical, old-timey but fresh. At times, they co-opt the close harmonies and pop-jazz sensibility of the Zombies (“So Much for Romance,” Emily”); elsewhere, they exude a rootsy American folk vibe (the glissando vocals of “Weightless,” the slide guitar on “The Only Sound,” or the Slim Pickens-tested and Quentin Tarantino-approved “I Can’t Fall Asleep”). They blend these influences with textured hooks and energetic indie rock a la The Pixies, a comparison suggested by not only the boy-girl vocals but also by the bacchanalian exuberance of tracks like “Don’t Get Excited” and “To Be the One.” The Antivillains’ yesteryear tendencies and contemporary smarts make for an album that is both surprising and quite familiar.
We received an advanced copy of So Much for Romance that is still unmastered, but the album’s incomplete production does not obscure the band’s talent. In fact, if the album has a weakness, it is that there are too few loose ends. Even the wall-of-feedback moments are masterfully engineered. But So Much for Romance is not cold or antiseptic. It is permeated with humid dreamscapes and bright aural sunrises.
The Antivillains plan a July release show at Frankie’s in Toledo ( www.frankiesinnercity.com) and a supporting tour.
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