The Rogers Sisters

Maps Magazine - Invisible Deck Review - 08/29/06

The Rogers Sisters
Album: The Invisible Deck

One of the perks of editing a site like Maps is that you are in a position to decide who gets to review what – so when an album full of throbbing rock and roll stompers that command the feet to dance with its elastic riffs and infectious girl/boy vocals arrives in the post, you obviously think long and hard about which writer is best suited to convey the energy and passion that such a record generates, one that can get right to the pounding heart that drives such a powerful beast. And then you decide to keep it for yourself.

The Invisible Deck is one such album, tracks like recent single
‘Why Won’t You’ (the video to which can be seen in this week’s
M(a)P3s), ‘The Undecided’ and ‘The Light’ move with such
swaggering splendour, revolving around honorary sister Miyuki
Furtado’s elastic basslines, Laura Rogers’ powerful drumming
and shards of jagged riffage ripped from Jennifer Rogers’ guitar.
Add to that the anthemic three-way call to arms vocals and a
sound that draws from all the best parts of their native New York’s
rich musical heritage, and the effect is truly devastating.

However, to simply dismiss ‘The Invisible Deck’ as an album of
anthemic party tunes would be to miss out on the true gems that
are to be found within. Yeah they can kick up a righteous rock &
roll frenzy when they want to, hell they’ve been doing that since their
debut album (2002’s promising but patchy ‘Purely Evil’), but true to the
album’s title, The Rogers Sisters’ strongest cards are held beneath the
surface in the subtly hypnotic building groove of ‘The Littlest World’,
previous single ‘Never Learn to Cry’’s perfectly balanced restraint, holding
off the desire to rock out until the very last moment, ‘Emotion Control’’s
showers of shimmering dissonance and regimented drumming and the
extended groove of gorgeous closing track ‘Sooner or Later’ and it’s
mesmerising rhythm that rises and falls in perfectly orchestrated peaks
and troughs before reaching it’s final climax over eight minutes later leaving
the listener feeling both exhilarated and exhausted.

‘The Invisible Deck’ is an astonishing album that takes everything
that The Rogers Sisters have built up over their first two releases and
tweaks and tones it. There’s no major new direction here, nor did there
need to be, but with a few new influences, most notably 70s acts like
Led Zeppelin, and a defter touch to the songwriting, Rogers Sisters v3
has emerged as a mature, craftful entity that still knows how to let its
hair down and have a good time, but just as importantly knows when to
reign in its wilder impulses.

Review & Photography by Paul Madden
Maps Magazine