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"Uncanny Eyes" isn't a brand-new recording from The Peculiar Pretzelmen, but it doesn't matter when it came out. It's worth getting. Now.
I ended up with a copy of this disc a few months back when the 'Pretzelmen were in the area opening of the Bad Things at their CD release show. The Peculiar Pretzelmen put on a great show and I was lucky enough to walk away with "Uncanny Eyes" in my possession.
The band's sound is like New Orleans swamp pop played by the guests of honor *AFTER* the funeral.
It is simultaneously gloomy and airy, almost magically conjured from a mix of ukulele, clarinet, guitar, understate (almost *implied*) percussion and M. Incroyable's fire-and-brimstone preacher as seducer/enticer voice.
The copout here is to compare the band to Tom Waits, I suppose you can see common ground but the 'Pretzelmen have more of a pop sensibility than Mr Waits has had in years. Perhaps if Danny Elfman wrote songs for Tom Waits... or vice versa.
Short-cut comparison reviews aside. I love this recording and found it utterly addictive. Barely a day goes by where I don't give it a spin and I have at least one of the songs in my head on a daily basis (usually "Sing Along", "New York Girls" or "Undertaker").
The best thing about "Uncanny Eyes" is that it doesn't sound like an epitaph. Listening to this CD I've never found myself thinking that this is a band that has recorded their definitive work. "Uncanny Eyes" is a great collection, but it seems like a beginning not an end. It feels like a hint of the excellent material the band has yet to release. It's a sign-post of the direction their headed not a tombstone of what the are destined to be remembered as.
Recommended.
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The Peculiar Pretzelmen:
http://www.myspace.com/pretzelmen
http://www.peculiarpretzelmen.com/
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