Rating: NNN
Toronto pop joker Spookey Ruben makes up for a six-year silence between domestic releases by cleaning out the compositional vault and dropping two new albums at once. Bed and Breakfast are split into night and day sounds. While the sprightly Breakfast is full XTC-style power pop, complete with big shiny choruses and high-concept tricks worked into the tunes, the quiet Bed features the hyperactive Ruben chilling slightly. It’s an ambitious project, but Ruben doesn’t really have the songs to hold together two records at once. Even though the sound veers from straight-up synth pop to disco, prog and robot techno, it’s really just the same tune over and over again. The mellower vibe of Bed forces Ruben to ditch the gimmicks occasionally and focus more on songs that hold up, but as a two-fer set, it’s still uneven. Ignore the clock and burn the best onto one disc. Spookey Ruben hosts Reverb Friday (August 17).
