Thingy

Rob Crow is my unsung pop hero. When his band Heavy Vegetable hit the scene, I couldn’t believe the number of spectacular melodic delicacies crammed into a single album. Pop songs that aimed straight for the hook, and choruses that hit their mark without any extraneous build up. After the demise of HV, Crow continued to ply his melodic trade in various collaborative settings including Optiganally Yours, Physics and Snotnose. However under the moniker Thingy, Crow carried on the HV tradition along with his vocal harmonist Elea Tenuta. The latest Thingy release continues a tradition of exquisite vocal harmonies woven atop math rock rhythms and inventive arrangements full of speedy acoustic guitar riffing. At their most paired down, the slower tempo songs stack up against any Beck ballad while at their most feverish the tracks evoke a new realm of progressive indie pop. To The Innocent is more a somber affair then previous Thingy or HV releases, with melodies more bitter-sweet and structures more involved.