Young People's Church of the Air in Bloomington, MN

When a band names its debut album after an image from a
Jonathan Safran Foer
novel, it's a safe bet to say that the territory you're in is more
Dirty Projectors
than
Ramones
. Sure enough, Washington, D.C., outfit
Deleted Scenes
are an arty indie pop ensemble, and they freely shift between a colorful patchwork of carefully tweaked textures, creating an arch but urgent private universe of sounds on their second album,
Young People's Church of the Air
. But one shouldn't necessarily approach the album expecting to encounter the semi-precious, rarefied realm of artists like the aforementioned
Projectors
--
do offer up actual pop and rock as part of their eclectic menu, just from a rather skewed perspective. "Baltika 9," for instance, could be
Devo
practicing in a garage after taking too much Ecstasy, and while "The Future of Hair Metal" offers no echoes of
Warrant
or
Poison
, title notwithstanding, it does dare to imagine what might have happened if
Modest Mouse
had mated with
Animal Collective
when no one was paying attention. There's also a fair amount of lo-fi action going on, as in the hushed, acoustic-based "Nassau." If anything, one of the album's defining features is the feeling that you're listening to everything from a great distance that adds to the evocative quality, something like hearing waves breaking on the beach from the privacy of your hotel room. ~ J. Allen