8 out of 10

Glamorously Punked-Out Goth
Allan Aguirre has come a long way from his Scaterd Few beginnings and nothing could be further from those riotous years than the latest excursion from Aguirre and friends on The Blue EP.

Establishing a sound that is reminiscent of adventurous New York style post-punk of the late '70's, Spy Glass Blue merge the more gothic side of Bowie and the pop exploits of The Cure as if it were injected with a dose of T. Rex and Lou Reed while being weaned on the Talking Heads. Quite a melting pot of Warhol-istic ideas, but nevertheless, The Blue EP is a soulful display of love and torment as viewed through Bible inspired sunglasses.

The psalm orientation of the lyrics is a cryptic point of the disc, but it is intriguing enough to grant the listener a portal into the mind of Aguirre and how he sees things.

The music is retro and upbeat, giving way to numerous comparisons, especially with a reverb doused crooning style not unlike Bowie or even peter Murphy on the track "I Will Love You."

The Blue EP isn't quite a masterpiece but is a decent collection of tracks to maintain your attention span while Aguirre gets his next disc ready. Hurry up, man!

4 out of 5

I didn't know what to expect from Spy Glass Blue, other than it was a project that involved Scaterd Few front man Allan Aguirre. They've been around since 1996, but this was my first listen. I guess I was expecting something different, as I was shocked to hear deep droning vocals, whether crooning or angry clearly in the style of Joy Division or The Smiths. The music is also a throwback to the alt rock, late 80s sound - strong catchy guitars riffs over a rich beat and back ground vocals substituting for synthesizer or keyboards. Think - Art of Noise gone new wave punk. The playing on this album is so precise it's mesmerizing. I can't shake the feeling that some of the playing has been recorded once and looped. Quite the departure from Scaterd Few's unique rawness.

Lyrically the EP has alt praise ("Mercy," "I Will Love You") and love songs ("One and Only," "Come Away"), all with a dark edge, but for me the EP hit it's stride with it's darkest song "Stymie":

swimming shark infested waters
kissing all the creature features
sleeping with gomorrah's daughters
eating with the fattened preachers
stymie

Catchy and dark all at once. What's not to love?

Spy Glass Blue has a weird sort of inversion happening with this EP, if the song is lyrically complex, the the music sticks to a simple structure. In contrast the song "Vacant Places" consists of the line “I will fill your vacant places” repeating over the most varied and complex music on the disk. I admit I don't know what do with that lyric. Is there such a thing as a spiritual double-entdre?

I can't make up my mind. Is Spy Glass Blue way too late for the 80s Alt scene or are they just early for the nostalgia party? Either way it's great for people who miss 80s alt music and wish it would be revived with fresh energy.

Somehow the time machine worked, regardless of the sound warnings and requisite technical problems.

Somehow we were able to go back in time to when David Bowie cared, and created accordingly. And made him skip everything he recorded after Scary Monsters & Super Creeps.

As a glam-to-Berlin-era Bowie fan, I intend the above as humongous praise, but I don't mean to sound like The Blue EP is merely an inspired nostalgia trip to the days when the crooning Then White Duke had his scrawny finger on the purple fallen vein of subversive art rock.

Mystically alluring and provocative band leader Allan Aguire (Scaterd Few) has that chaotically creative period down well, but his band also adds some very clever post-punk-pop elements, like spinning and spitting early Church-style guitars (whole album), Monastery-brand incense-soaked Peter Murphy vocal prayers ("One and Only"), Joy Division goosestep and grinds ("Stymie") -- and somewhere in here, an accessible and hope-driven sort of Public Image Limited vibe pulls one back to a time when mediocre rock had been smothered and was reborn finding maniacally flickering life in a shiny grease pool at the bottom of a deep dark club stuffed with the walking dead.

Anything can happen.

Again.

Hell, even a gorgeous ballad pops up, "Come Away," which Scott Walker would cover in a withered-yet-dapper heartbeat.

"I will fill your vacant places," Aguire chants at the end of the EP's closer, "Vacant places." The detumescence of our culture is addressed; the garage metal riffs tumble on top of each other with the repeated promises.

Spy Glass Blue is a California band that has been working on this sound for awhile, but this is the most effective release of theirs I've heard to date. To be honest, this is the first record of theirs to truly capture my attention, and its energy and attractiveness is unique -- there may be no niche market for a rock band with this much clear spirit right now. The six songs here seem to be succulent slices from an inspired songwriting marathon, the guitars of Sergio de Leon so fantastically fitting the perfervid rhythm section of Jason Perez (drums) and Brian May (bass), that it all seems new, no effete cabaret. Keeping it to an EP seems a bit of a tease, but you must admire their creative restraint.

But if you do miss the time when moody, meaningful, doomed pop love dominated the airwaves, I don't think Aguire and his fellow gang of holy fools will leave you out.

Allan Aguirre has long been bubbling just below the ground and has developed a pretty loyal cult following over the years through both his Spy Glass Blue and Scatered Few projects. With "The Blue EP", Allan Aguirre proves once again that he is one of the most intriguing and intelligent writers to come forth in the last decade. It has long puzzled me why he isn't one of the richest men in rock.

Musically, "The Blue EP" continues in the same David Bowie / Raw Rock vein as Spy Glass Blue's last album, "Loud As Feathers". Aguirre's influences are more prominent these days and the songs lean much more towards a raw garage rock sound then the Goth and Goth Punk-ish sounds of the "Shadows" album and is miles away from the oddity that is Scatered Few. Aguirre sounds very settled into his sound on this album and I'd say it's one of his best works pretty easily. This EP has it all, the David Bowie vocal, the ethereal/atmospheric vocals, and a little of Aguirre's trademark squeal as well as a very good band that seems to really have a grip on the direction of the songs.

For fans of Aguirre's work this is one not to miss out on. This seems to accomplish what "Loud As Feathers" lacked, the production is much clearer here and the EP really benefits from the clear distinct sound. It's just much more to the point sounding in my opinion and has a very natural feel to it. For those still unfamiliar with Spy Glass Blue, this is an excellent place to begin. I like it better with each listen. Don't miss the boat on this one.

Key Song: "Stymie"

This Bowie tribute band... (Did I actually say that?)
What I meant to say is this hard working band has been on the road for several months this year, honing it's sound and song crafting, and it has paid off.

Dreamy pure pop songs penetrate both hemisphere's of the brain in glorious stereo, though it could just as well have been christened in mono with it's simplistic but strong songs.

Now Spy Glass Blue can stand up and rival Scaterd Few as the best band that Allan Aguirre has fronted.

My first exposure to Allan Aguirre's music came when one of the guys in my high school youth group let me borrow a battered cassette of Scaterd Few's Sin Disease. It was a landmark album in my formative years, a riotous and compelling album full of urban and spiritual unrest and angst. Although often labelled "punk," it was much more than that, taking punk and blending it with goth, thrash, glam-rock, metal, and reggae into a completely unique and vital pastiche, with Aguirre's dramatic vocals and incisive lyrics completing the picture.

In my sophomore year of college, my roommate at the time (also a big Aguirre fan) let me hear some of Aguirre's then-new project, Spy Glass Blue, on a 7" he had picked up. With Spy Glass Blue, Aguirre started moving towards a darker, more (for lack of a better term) "gothic" sound, giving greater sway to his glam influences (i.e. David Bowie). However, after that and Scaterd Few's Jawboneofanass, Aguirre's music slipped off the radar for me. I'd manage to catch bits and pieces of Spy Glass Blue's Cornerstone performances, but that was really about it.

So it was with a fair amount of interest that I started listening to The Blue EP. I was curious as to how Aguirre's music had changed/matured over the ensuing years. And I have to conclude that the jury's still out on that one. At their best, such as tracks like "One And Only" and "Stymie," Aguirre and band pick up on the New York vibe (think Interpol or Calla, rather than The Strokes).

"Stymie" is probably the EP's strongest track, featuring some unexpected, mercurial hooks with Aguirre's melodramatic vocals swooping above and delivering lyrics that could only have come from his pen - "Swimming shark-infested waters/Kissing all the creature features/Sleeping with Gomorrah's daughters/Eating with the fattened preachers."

Elsewhere, the lyrics take on a bit more bluntness, with Aguirre wearing his spirituality on his sleeve. "Mercy" lifts a page from the Psalms ("In skin you've clothed me/With bones you've knit me/Fearfully wonderfully made") with Aguirre adding some imagery of his own ("Orion maker/The bear caretaker... You're mountain shaker and heaven stretcher"). And "Come Away" finds the band taking on a much more relaxed vibe, with Aguirre crooning "The flowers are blooming/They dance with the dew/And the voice of the dove has been heard/Come away with me" amidst dreamy guitars.

However, the EP is not without its weak points. The final track, "Vacant Places," finds Aguirre repeatedly wailing "I will fill your vacant places" over a pogoing jam of slicing guitars and bouncing rhythms. However, for all its energy, the track seems superfluous - like a demo recorded as a warmup to the recording sessions proper, and included on the EP just to bring the total number of tracks up to an even six. Indeed, it'd be nice if the energy packed into this song could somehow have been evenly distributed amongst the EP's other five tracks.

And as much as I enjoy Aguirre's melodramatic vocals, the songs on this EP don't do them justice by a mile. Indeed, they often seem held back in a way by the songs and unable to break free and be as intense as they could be. I'd be curious to hear his distinctive wail backed by even more obtuse, unusual sounds and structures (which are hinted at on "Come Away", but only barely).

It's been a solid five years or more since I had a heard a new Allan Aguirre recording, so it's really impossible for me to comment on how his sound has (or hasn't) matured or developed. I can only really compare it to Sin Disease, and that's not fair to either the old or new Aguirre (for starters, we're talking about a thirteen-year difference between recordings, not to mention two completely different bands and approaches).

There's still certainly room for even more growth - both in the use of Aguirre's vocals and in the overall intensity. Though I compared the EP's finer moments to a band like Calla, there's only a fraction here of the dark, nervous intensity one finds on Televise. Overall, the EP feels like a stopgap, a transitional work. Something to give fans a taste of what the band is truly capable of and to span the gap until a proper release comes out, a release that really displays the band's talents... and I await just such a recording.