I had no idea who Casper and the Cookies were before hearing this album. The name sounded very poppy and uninteresting to me. Listening to the ultra bouncy first track only confirmed my prejudice. The second track made me do a double take. ‘You Love Me’ is a sweeping soundscape of electronic sounds, shifting tempos and alternate melodies, making it clear that this wasn’t just a pop-rock trio. It wasn’t until the third track however that I fully understood what they were attempting to accomplish. The brilliance of ‘Pete Erchick Bicentennial Service Area’ lies in its use of empty space. The rest is filled in with quick tight drum fills and a closely accompanying bass groove. It’s such a thoughtful and intricately constructed piece that I had trouble even finding the tempo upon first listen. This is a band that embraces making challenging music. Their glossy surface is what makes them attractive. The last band to master this technique was the Beatles, but Casper and the Cookies don’t get off that easily. Their weaknesses are too glaring and numerous. For one, when they do go down the strictly pop-rock route, it’s extremely difficult to take them seriously. When this is coupled with poor lyrics, it’s damn near impossible. Jason NeSmith is an excellent songwriter as far as rhythm and melody go, but the written word is not his strong suit. Many times he seems to have grand intentions with his concepts: ‘One hundred billion neurons fire in tribute to your name/ my temporal lobe has taken hostage of my brain.’ The problem is they end up coming off as nerdy and downright corny without any tongue-in-cheek value to justify them.
Like the Beatles, the band splits up the writing duties amongst its members, with NeSmith handling the bulk. Kay Stanton’s contributions tend to all hover comfortably in her half-hearted pop-punk realm, while NeSmith likes to dabble in a bit of everything. As a band, their virtuosic capabilities and courageous songwriting is impressive, but it fails to hit the mark more often than not. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the would-be-epic fifteen minute long ‘I Am Gone.’ It is a loose amalgamation of sound effects, random vocal harmonies and samples that serves as a very pretentious and unsatisfying grand finale to an album that wanted to be so much. It seems to fall a little short. When they do hit the target it’s a double bullseye. If they ever managed to do this for an entire album they’d have a classic on their hands.
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