Paper Brain

Ain't Nobody Cares

(ESL)

Record Review by Amber Henson

As an only child, most of my knowledge of what it’s like to have a sibling are from outside observations or stereotypes.  I wouldn’t assume that it would be cool to have your sister in your band, like Mike Wroblewski of Paper Brain has, but then again I wouldn’t have thought it would cool to have your ex-wife pretend to be your sister and then have her in your band, but that seems to work well for The White Stripes.

Each to his own, I guess.  And the Wroblewski siblings’ own seems to work pretty well.  They’re sophomore effort Ain’t Nobody Cares makes my English major side cringe at the title, but my music appreciating side has been enjoying this twangy indie-pop record.  And, at fourteen songs, there is certainly a lot to enjoy.  Mike lets his sister, Jeni, sing some of the songs, which gives the album a nice, casual Rilo Kiley feel (“Who wants to sing this one?”).  They’re both fun singers, if not occasionally off key, and the rest of the band, Adam Zavala on drums and Duncan Galvin on bass, are great musicians.

The album, although full of a lot of fast, happy beats, goes atonal at parts, and track five, “OMT”, makes use of a saw and a theremin, both of which need to be a bigger part of the music scene.  The lyrics occasionally reference pop culture with such lines as “She [the singer’s mother] didn’t have the time to listen to me whine,” on “Postman” or “It was only a flesh wound, but now no remains,” on “No Remains.”

Ain’t Nobody Cares sounds quite familiar, in a very pleasing way.  The melodies are catchy, and with fourteen songs there’s likely something on the album for everyone.  I guess if this is the outcome of brother/sister ventures, I should get myself married, then divorced, so I can be part of the fun.