Tempo No Tempo, Repetition

The band Tempo No Tempo from Oakland, California, walks the line between rock music and dance music, which is a noble but tricky frontier. To me, being a fan much more so of the rock side of music, it just gets dangerous when the synthesizers start to take over. And adding to that, dance music lyrics are usually the kiss of death (done with black, cheesy, goth lipstick, of course).

Tempo No Tempo’s Repetition EP starts off strong with its title track, which has a catchy guitar riff and steady piano pounding that’ll get the people moving to the dance floor. Then my favorite track on the EP, “Irregular Heartbeats,” kicks off, with a bassline that turns in and out and drives the song. The drums and percussion have some maniacal hi-hat shuffling going on in this quick-paced song, too. The singing is frantic, and the singer even lets out a few Guy Picciotto-type yelps with the line: “Makes me wonder if there is a heart beating at all…” Then it’s back to that bassline turning over and that hi-hat working — the dance floor will be at fever pitch.

Just as I feared, though, track three, “Narrowed Scopes and Sharpened Knives,” gets too synthy for me, and the vocals go deep, monotone, and ’80s-ish. The dance floor will be robotic and laden with Euro-drowsiness on this one. Have hope, though; the EP travels upward a bit with afterwards, “Sleeping on Airplanes,” which has quiet verses and a keen guitar riff working. The vocals are melancholic at first but work into a yell for the choruses. Unfortunately, the CD then crash-lands for me with the song “Headlights,” which returns to the synthy form of track three. It is slower and more thoughtful, however — perhaps meant to be used as a last-song slow dance?

Tempo No Tempo is a good band. The lyrics on Repetition are okay, but typical to any kind of dance music; the words are not too thought-provoking. Tempo No Tempo is trying to fuse many musical worlds together, and when they get it right, like on “Irregular Heartbeats,” they may even see my lame no-dancing self on the dance floor.