System And Station Are A Nation of Actors

by Paul POP!, First Coast News

Originally forming in that hotbed of rock and roll, Boise, and then moving west to Portland, System and Station are a band you may never have heard of, but they've have been around for over a decade. In fact, they've been around so long that their latest album, A Nation of Actors is actually their fourth and it's a rather ambitious effort.

Perhaps a bit more accessible than some of their previous efforts, System and Station sound something like a cross between Spoon, Ted Leo and the mathy indie rock of old Polyvinyl Records. This is a band that has just the right amount of moodiness and technicality in their songs to keep you guessing but have hooks big enough to snag you when you least expect it.

Alternating between quieter moments and rawkus upbeat guitar workouts, System and Station happily give you the best of both worlds. Their loud angular songs hit you from all sides with choppy guitars and driving drums that pound themselves into your consciousness, while their slower moments are airy and ethereal and tend to drift by making their presence felt simply through atmospherics.

A Nation of Actors is stacked with tunes that are difficult to set aside. The urgent riffs of, "Sell Out" are a boisterous statement of what this band is about while, "Too Late Too Soon," is a spiky walk through choppy indie rock that is almost reminiscent of Spoon's best.

System and Station are clearly a band that know how to write a song or two and A Nation of Actors is a mature effort that's loaded with them. With enough soaring moments and spastic guitar workouts to last a lifetime System and Station should make some headway into becoming far more recognizable.