Method And The Result

Remember that sequence in Coyote Ugly when Piper Perabo starts messing around with the arrangements of her songs using a computer and laughing about it? The Method And The Result have constructed an entire EP out of that minute-and-a-half of footage. Singer Megan Wendell’s ultra processed voice crowns Brad Wood-worthy sound effect percussion in a minimalist sound that’s unabashedly pop — if only because Wendell’s voice gets pushed to the fore as a by-product of what amounts to static instrumentation. Outside of Wendell’s voice, the instrumentation on The Things You Miss is never allowed to break out because the beats threaten to swallow them whole and any differentiation between the tracks vanishes in the process due to the fact that the beats are so same-y. The atmosphere of the record ends up being sterile because there is no escape from the overly repetitive and measured beats and no room for any stray sparks of energy. When Wendell moans "Do you want progress?” on the not-so-surprisingly subdued "Safety Scissors” it’s impossible not to want to scream "Yes!” because we’ve already heard the exact same song four times with only the lyrics changing. Only on the record’s closer, "Everything Old Is New Again” do the samples-and-guitar amalgam supplied by Mason Wendell begin to hint that some nervous energy may be crackling around the edges and by then it’s too late — the vibe’s been set, and there’s no turning back because there isn’t anything to follow the song or further redeem the album. Whether subsequent releases from TM&TR will yield any interesting music depends upon whether they can get those oh-so-slick beats to function less as a framework to contain the songs and more like percussive hooks. Following an old Buddhist proverb, in the case of The Things You Miss, the method most definitely outweighed the results.