The Rogers Sisters

Aversion - Invisible Deck Review - 06/ 6/06

The Invisible Deck
The Rogers Sisters
Too Pure Records

Though they probably don’t like to hear it, there’s little getting around it: The Rogers Sisters have something of a retro sound. The comparisons are so obvious as to be trite. Maybe it’s the makeup of the band – two sisters and an unrelated guy – but The Rogers Sisters cannot escape their influences: The B-52s, The Pixies, Boss Hog, Royal Trux, Sonic Youth.

But the Sisters aren’t content to spit up derivative punk pop nostalgic for the golden age of college radio. On Invisible Deck, the band’s third full-length, the band opens up the creative palette, drawing inspiration from such sources as Beck, No Means No, the Go-Go’s and Rage Against the Machine.

Far from tired rip-off artists, the Sisters pull it all together in their own riff-heavy stew of melodic punk that inspires toe-tapping and shout-along choruses, like on “The Conversation” where lone male and bass player Miyuki Furtado waxes Zach de la Rocha and leads listeners in the line “Now we’re all unhappy and we’re all unkind.”

Perhaps the credit for making it work should go to the globetrotter Furtado. He was born in Hawaii, but lived (and sampled music) in Japan, Liberia, Switzerland and Baltimore (his father was in the U.S. State Department) before hooking up with Jennifer and Laura in Brooklyn (where else?)

With the exception of “Your Littlest World” and eight-minute closer “Sooner or Later” the songs are basically little three-minute shots of punk with the requisite preaching about government malfeasance and regular people with misplaced priorities. The record opens with “Why Won’t You,” propelled by a choppy riff and an arpeggio solo. The lead single “Never Learn To Cry” follows and starts out sounding like the Cars “Let’s Go” before resembling the Go-Go’s and finally gets all Thurston Moore fuzzy by the end.

“Your Littlest World” opens with a slinky bass and snare riff and gains intensity with Jennifer Rogers’s come-hither vocals. By the end the track is really burning, with Rogers admonishing a do-nothing layabout, repeatedly accusing “You’re just a statue” while her sister and Furtado lay down a hypnotizing vamp that become a bed for Jennifer’s mournful guitar solo, the whole thing ending in a puddle of distortion.

There’s little question where The Rogers Sisters come from. The thing that remains up in the air is where are they going. Invisible Deck is a very good record with plenty of flashes of a distinct musical voice. The trick is to move some of those musical references further back in the mix and continue exploring a unique path. – Christopher Keough

Aversion