Shy Child Noise Won't Stop

• Words: Connie Hwong
• Label: Kill Rock Stars
• XLR8R Rating: 7/10

Never before has a keytar sounded so menacing. Shy Child's Pete Cafarella wrings some fiercely crunchy, dark riffs out of his, as on the coldly digital "Kick Drum," which features the vocal talents of Spank Rock. At other times, Cafarella seems content to jam out some decidedly unthreatening jazzy pop and vocoder numbers–a puzzling development that gives Shy Child a schizophrenic personality divided between saccharine Euro-radio pop ("Generation Y") and pulsating robo-disco ("Noise Won't Stop," "Astronaut") that would easily blend with tracks from The Presets and The Faint. The record is disconcertingly heterogeneous, but luckily the electro songs win out in the numbers game–we can pretend the other stuff never happened.