Burgess Shale (http://www.burgessshale.us) are as enigmatic and unique as their name, which is taken from a fossil site in the Colorado Rockies, a place where animals from millions of years ago perished and never evolved. It's high-brow stuff, and Burgess Shale's music is similarly brainy and odd.
It's hard to describe this group since this album doesn't follow a set formula or discernable path; the band bends stylistic conventions like rubber, making bizarre pretzel shapes that could be best interpreted as Frank Zappa fronting the Beatles. Little bits of guitar fuzz characterize the opening cut, "Fuzzy Logic," giving it a late '60s psychedelic vibe but it's the off-kilter male/female harmonies of Heather Hopson and Brian Fraser that open up the song's hooks.
The audience most likely to "get" Burgess Shale - the alternative crowd - will probably be not used to arty arrangements that the group is keen on. "Machine Gun Monkeys" has fiery riffs that would've fit onto FM rock radio in the '70s; however, the overall tune is idiosyncratic, too quirky for the average butt rocker to comprehend. They might have an easier time with "Thanksgiving," which recalls Supertramp at their finest.
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Lyrically, Burgess Shale are open to interpretation. For example, "Thanksgiving" seems to be about a dead husband who is haunting President Bush.
Throughout it all, Hopson and Fraser deliver their sweet talk, making the otherworldliness seem down to Earth.
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