Obscured by Clowns in Bloomington, MN

"Hello Beginning, This Is My Friend. . .the End"
starts off
Rumah Sakit
's third album,
Obscured By Clowns
, with a building clamor akin to the first track on
Tortoise
's
Standards
-- as if played by
Mogwai
. But
are both less destructive and less ethereal than
, focusing on the playful, sometimes even the ironic sides, of instrumental music.
"New Underwear Dance"
mostly meanders happily until it breaks into a thrusting assault, and
"No On Likes a Grumpy Cripple"
actually travels into
Dinosaur Jr.
territory with crunchy, propulsive guitar madness. But while
is an intellectually stimulating
prog
experience, the album seems to lack the real, consistent emotive push of bands like
,
, or
Explosions in the Sky
, the atmosphere of ambient outfits like
Black Dice
, and the utopian
psychedelics
of
. ~ Charles Spano