Artist: Toofunchild

Artist: Toofunchild

Links: https://www.facebook.com/TOOFUNCHILD

Toofunchild.Bandcamp.com

Toofunchild features layers upon layers of loosely structured vocals -- two lead singers across multitudinous vocal tracks -- in a way that recalls the darker side of Modest Mouse. For those of you who don't know, behind each Modest Mouse radio single lurked something vocally vicious, as on MM's "Invisible." Because some would prefer a comparison not tangentially related to the softbatch "Float On," you could instead liken Toofunchild to the orchestrated anarchy of Titus Andronicus, especially with TA's vocal choruses on The Monitor's "A More Perfect Union." (I'd name-check Thursday, but screamo doesn't work so well without the emo, and this type of vocal interplay falls short the few times it's used here.)

"Ice Temple" is the perfect album-opener and exemplar of TFC's sound. During the song's first-half, the lead singer's tone, melody, phrasing and harmony are rivaled only by the complementary contingent of drums and guitar. The two vocal leads are well-employed on "Cappin' Tradin'." Ascending electrics (guitar and bass) are joined by uptempo vocals sung in unison, "what happens when the sun won't shine, and the rain won't fall, and the trees won't grow." The pace is skillfully halved by choppy chords that support a second unison vocal hook, "I built this house for you / And you came and tore it down."

On "Weewu," after a lone guitar introduces the song -- the riff, a drugged-out version of the already stoned "Up Around the Bend" by Creedence Clearwater Revival -- we get relatively hushed vocals, giving way to a melodic hook of "Where it came from / What his name was," followed by a drum-addled bridge from which we glean pop culture touchstones like Coca-Cola, I Dream of Jeannie and Aerosmith's "Janie's Got a Gun." (I wouldn't be able to make the rest out without a lyric sheet, but it sounded great washed down with beautiful song-ending "wa-oh.")

"Windows 3.1" adds another dimension with its placement of a mini-Moog, providing instrumental melody always welcome amid numerous male vocals. And the first half of album-closer "New Thirst Lent" has Toofunchild flexing another muscle -- namely, that it can slow-burn with the best of 'em.

Toofunchild is among the very best Chicago has to offer. Which is fortuitous, because the band's name and logo (possibly controversial?) are just as memorable.

*** The author of this review, Mike Owens, plays the surdo for the following band: http://youtu.be/tMS73-1kCr8