I, Octopus/Metronome the City, Split EP

I’m still a little bit confused about why these two totally separate groups chose to share one forty-minute-long EP divided into two über-lengthy tracks. The best way to express their relationship is to list their commonalities: both bands are from New Orleans, and both are marketed as being “experimental rock.”

Metronome the City (“MTC”, for short) boasts a simple lineup — just five gentlemen and thirty-four instruments, including, but not limited to a didgeridoo, Gameboys, gas tanks, rain sticks, thunder sheets, a theremin, and a microKORG (very cool). Their range of sound machines enables a wide interpretation of musical genres, and the twenty-plus-minute track samples various forms of progressive rock, dub, and garbage noise. MTC’s chord progressions and electric guitar jams remind me of Fugazi, and the deviating synthesized and organic sounds are much more refined and seem more focused on quality and complexity than the sound menagerie of EP cohorts I, Octopus.

I, Octopus (let’s call ’em “IO”), for its part, is a dark spot on the awesomeness spectrum. Their solo track, “Craig Has a Beard Now,” is a cafeteria hot dog of sound: macerated mystery pulp squeezed into a sustainable shape that you just don’t know if you’re willing to commit to. Combining different genres and sounds in ways similar to MTC (the comparison will stop here), IO is heavy on the synths and repetition of sound — a poor placebo for what I assume is meant to be music.

Metronome the City is the clear champion of the non-existent shared EP “joust,” and I’m digging their solo full-length album, Electric Elements Exposed, to boot. Check out both bands and their albums on their respective MySpace pages, and if you are feeling willing to give I, Octopus another chance, be sure to catch their act at SXSW ’09.