“I thought I’d reinvent just 50 percent of myself,” sings Aleks Bryant over syncopated beats, chiming guitars, computer-generated blips, but tellingly no banjo, on The Ramps’ first single in two years ‘Antique Limb’ (a split 7” with Canada’s Mixylodian). The absence of Bryant’s five-stringed trademark is telling, but the real reinvention is the way the band have refined the zany, self-sabotaging impulses of their first album – 2007’s Pisces Vs. Aquarius – into a focused whole. Or have they?

“We figured this was the most likely to receive airplay,” wrote the band in a press release/letter accompanying the song. “The other tracks are mostly field recordings of yawning panthers. It turns out their yawns aren't as audible as they are visually stunning.”

Even if ‘Antique Limb’ is an anomaly in an album full of feline sounds (or non-sounds), it would’ve been well worth it. Three-and-a-half minutes of organised pop chaos, it features bird noises, pots and pans, handclaps, xylophones, boy-girl harmonies, video game noises, tape effects and what sounds like pedal steel but could very well be a Theremin played backwards through a delay pedal inside a man’s hat.

Beginning with some Afro-pop guitars straight outta Upper West Side Soweto, the track builds towards orgasmic pop ecstasy announced by Janita Foley’s sweet vocal entrance: “You’re a dream come true/I dreamt you up/Right down to your pointed shoes.” From there, ‘Antique Limb’ becomes a sort of duet between Bryant’s downcast verses and Foley’s sweet interludes. When the pair come together in low-high harmony, it’s pure pop bliss.

Less may be more, but in the right hands, more can be quite extraordinary as well.

by Darren Levin