"This is not a thin record." So proclaims The Standard's Tim Putnam, when pressed to describe the Portland quintet's sound. The band's third album,"Wire Post To Wire" their first for Yep Roc Records, is a stunningly original musical statement that defies easy comparisons. The Standard, five fast friends who lived together, worked together and wrote together for the making of this release, have made an album that eschews hipper-than-thou trends and "fashion" for their own honest, admittedly idiosyncratic musical vision. Listening to the disc, moments of flickering incandescence and spare, haunting piano interludes crest to full band explosions with violent guitar squalls that evolve into hypnotic guitar lines, all executed with sleek precision over pulsing drum parts and heady swells of ambient sound. Progressive, not prog (think Eno/Roxy Music), artful, not arty, post- rock, yet hauntingly beautiful. Longtime band friend Jeff Saltzman (Stephen Malkmus, Sleater Kinney, Dolorean and many more), functioned as producer, collaborator and unofficial sixth member of the band. Standard Jewel Case/Box Lot-30
