City Center City Center

• Words: Brandon Bussolini
• Label: Type
• XLR8R Rating: 5/10

This new project from former Saturday Looks Good To Me honcho Fred Thomas takes more than a few moves from the Panda Bear playbook. This may sound alright in theory, but in practice Thomas seems to be writing against his own strengths throughout much of the album. Middle track “Bleed Blood” is especially weak, as the looped samples knock the melodies off center rather than buoying them. That some of these sounds seem to be little more than decent approximations of Person Pitch's key phrases isn’t as distracting as the sense that the music is struggling to work its way into a productive tension.