Throw Me The Statue: Creaturesque

Originally Scott Reitherman’s moniker for his one-man indie-pop project, Seattle’s Throw Me The Statue is now a disarmingly skillful quartet that arranges Reitherman’s tightly constructed songs with a loose playfulness. Creaturesque, TMTS’s second album, is a broad jump above their debut, 2007’s Moonbeams: Not only is the group fully integrated into the proceedings, the songs are sturdier, and Reitherman’s sweet-toned, sighing fog of a voice gains character and depth with repetition. Early R.E.M. serves as a sonic touchstone, particularly on “Ancestors,” whose rolling-kudzu dreaminess is nicely offset with a mosquito-buzzing guitar, and “Cannibal Rays,” which sets its open-ended vocal melody over chiming Peter Buck-like guitars and a tinny drum machine. Sometimes TMTS gets a little too cute, as on the somewhat cloying chorus of “Cannibal Rays,” and when Reitherman sings nonsense like “I’ll play drums in your hair” during “Shade For A Shadow,” it throws off the track’s quietly brooding spell. But even during the group’s most blatantly obvious hat-tips (the scrappy rhythm-guitar-and-cymbals intro of “Hi-Fi Goon” screams Built To Spill), Reitherman and company have plenty of their own character.