John Maus – We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves [Upset the Rhythm] // Grade: B

We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves finds John Maus dusting off the ol’ synthesizer collection for the first time since the release of his 2007 album Love is Real. In typical Mausian fashion, there’s nary a guitar riff to be found throughout, but I’m convinced the crooner wouldn’t have it any other way. The addition of an accompanying female vocalist on the record presents a nice departure from the norm as well, but it doesn’t detract from the calling-card weirdness that fans of the man have come to expect.

Although Maus still isn’t approaching Steely Dan territory when it comes to studio perfectionism, the sound we’re presented with on the new record is certainly a bit more polished than anything we’ve heard out of the Ariel Pink crony before. If you’ll allow me to step into cliche-record-reviewer territory for just a moment, everything here just seems to glitter a little more than the stuff found throughout his earlier catalog. Even the deep-ass vocals most folks have grown accustomed to seem to have been given a quick spit shine. Really though, Maus’s voice still hangs out in limbo somewhere between the bark of Ian Curtis, and the manly lilt of Scott Walker. “We Can Break Through” presents Maus doing some weird ,layered, chanting monk thing, that actually works out really well for him in a lot of ways.

Keeping up song writing-wise with past records, a few of the tunes on Pitiless Censors sound like they could have been used more effectively as the schematics to build a larger, more encompassing tune.  “Matter of Fact” presents Maus essentially repeating the same phrase “Pussy is not the matter of fact,” in different combinations and different orders, for the duration of the song’s 2:17 running time. While pussy may really not be the matter of fact, and you might find yourself humming the melody of  this one after a handful of listens, it certainly doesn’t have the replay value that some of the more song-y songs posses. If anything, it’ll leave you wondering what could have been.

We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves may leave some more forward thinking pop fans scratching their heads at times, and will certainly leave a lot of traditional rock n’ roll fans out in the dark. If, however, you find yourself to be one of those bedroom pop aficionados that seem to be sprouting up as of late, you’ll be pleased to strap on the headphones for this one.

- Zaius