Capillary Action - Capsized (2011, Natural Selection)

RIYL = Skeletons, The Weird Weeds, Extra Life

Capsized is jaunty and whipping, markedly tonguing the space between pop music and, well, everything else. It's an album filled with corners, turning you a sharp ninety degrees in one direction before sloping back a quick one-fifty and spitting you out in another direction. That being the case, preliminary listens can be a bit disorienting. It’s an adventure listen, there’s no doubt about that.

This is what Capillary Action has a mind for: Spinning you so precisely as to unravel your brain tissue.

At which point, once unravelled, band leader Jonathan Pfeffer handles the coils, hitting various pleasure points with clinical accuracy. It’s a ridiculous surgery, sure, perhaps a risky one, but a procedure well worth undertaking.  (As is any album that is surgical.)

So press past disorientation.  This is an album that rewards every repeat listen bountifully.

Upside-down as often as it is right-side-up, Capsized is another agitated notch of maniacal, rib-loosening pop music from the constantly inventive Capillary Action.

Capillary Action - Brackish Love (Radio Edit) by Jonathan Pfeffer

Capillary Action - So Embarrassing

Capillary Action
So Embarrassing
(2008, Pangaea)
Verdict = The best whiplash money can buy

For Utah residence this is probably going be an unnecessary rehashing of mostly well known facts, but for the sake of those who don’t know and probably never would otherwise, Utah is the home to an amusement park by the name of Lagoon. Coincidentally I grew up near the park, something of an anchor for me (“oh you live in Farmington? That is by Lagoon, right?”). Anyway, awkward childhoods aside, Lagoon used to have a ride called The Wild Mouse. The ride consisted of a small cart which fit like three or four people. The small size of the cart along with wheels which swiveled allowed the ride to make heinously neck torquing turns that were so jarring that they eventually had to tear the thing down because of its uncanny ability to injure its passengers (oh, and there was that one story about one of the carts flying off the tracks killing its passengers, but I think that urban legend only ran in the elementary gossip circuit). I was pretty dang young when they tore the ride down, but I still remember it being my favourite ride. Listening to Capillary Action’s So Embarrassing is probably the closest thing I have experienced to those first young adrenaline pumping rides on The Wild Mouse. Capillary Action is essentially the inspiration of mad guitarist Jonathan Pfeffer. Picking from a diverse array of musical styles including avant indie rock, scorched jazz and backwards metal, Pfeffer and Co. have created an enticing, wholly original sound that is all their own and never sits still for long. In recent years Lagoon resurrected The Wild Mouse. However, as you may have guessed, in exchange for its new sheen, everything that made the ride great in the first place is gone. Yep, everything is safe and sound. I get the feeling that Capillary Action is the kind of band that will never be described as safe. In the fairly short running time of So Embarrassing, the band manages enough rhythmic u-turns and insane instrumentation to send you reeling into the days of yore when music as well as life was both exciting and dangerous.

-Mr. Thistle

Capillary Action on Myspace