CD Reviews

Guillermo Sexo | Secret Wild

Girl Boy Girl Boy Records (2011)

By BARRY THOMPSON | August 30, 2011

3.0 Stars

A Boston-area quartet discovered a middle-road solution to the dilemma confronted by every band who endures past its sophomore album. Facing a choice between cranking out same-y records until everyone gets bored, or straying so far from their fundamental formula that their fans fly into a fury, Guillermo Sexo opt to stay mostly within their own private panorama of alterna-rock finery while still shaking things up a bit. (Side note: does anyone mind if we start using "alternative" as a blanket term for underground-ish rock again? It always had a better ring to it than "indie.") Last year's Vivid Nights exuded garage-y raggedness, with Noell Dorsey and Reuben Bettsak splitting lead singer tasks more or less 50/50. On Secret Wild, Sexo's fourth album (released in CD form last month), Dorsey is mostly alone in projecting words onto the gleaming guitar resonance that suggests gazier endeavors like the aptly cloudy "Skyline" and the temperamental "Smoke Signals." Calm/downer numbers on rock records often come across as contrived, but the titular track and "Exhale" attain total Mazzy Star pleasantness. And speaking of stars, we have to dock them half of one for the two tracks of quavering effects-pedal noise. Songs are better than noise, usually.

GUILLERMO SEXO + ALOUD + SARAH RABDAU & SELF-EMPLOYED ASSASSINS | Great Scott, 1222 Comm Ave, Allston | September 13 @ 9 pm | 18+ | $10 | 617.566.9014

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