Author: Joe Martin
09/03/2004 | CMJ | www.cmj.com | Album Review
In an era choked with faceless post-punk bands playing herky-jerky guitars, Chris Hughes, singer/guitarist for Omaha's Beep Beep, has developed a simple formula for being heard over the din of mediocrity: Wail really loudly. Hughes sounds like he's being electrocuted for most of Business Casual's 27 minutes, which just happens to be the perfect compliment for the band's nervy, danceable guitar serration. On tracks like "Misuse Their Bodies" and "Electronic Wolves," the usual circa-1979 suspects are invoked (Gang Of Four, Talking Heads, Joy Division), but Beep Beep tempers their old-school jones with some restless- as-hell new-school Dischording. The strident vocals and tense rhythms of "Oh No!" suggest a less percussive Q And Not U, begging the question of whether the band's name was cribbed from that band's debut (No Kill No Beep Beep). Similarly, Hughes' voice has a habit of climbing up into the atonal yowling that both Black Eyes and the Rapture fought to copyright last year. What makes Beep Beep work is the smooth synthesis of all these somewhat obvious influences into a cogent, respectable whole. If Beep Beep haven't quite figured out how to capture Q And Not U's urgency or Gang Of Four's manic screech, they seem more than willing to learn, making Business Casual a promising voice in the otherwise blasť post-punk crowd.