Get Stoned with Tape Club, the Newest From Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin

​
Listen to this while high: Tape Club by Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin.
​
Behind the buzz: Outta Springfield, Mo., this perennial Internet buzz band whose three full-lengths rate highly with the sort of indie blogoscenti most likely to faint if the P.A. were to suddenly offload a stack of Nazareth or Tom T. Hall joints. Well, the delicate and veiny ears of such exquisites are in for quite the massaging with this 24-track gallimaufry of B-sides, demos, left-offs, and suchlike, with the whole magilla forming, as is usual with such collections, a type of secret history of the band. They headline at the Hotel Utah tomorrow night.

Today's weed: Platinum Bubba.

Remainder counter goodies: "The Clod and the Pebble" is a dainty ode to love highlighted by sweetcheeked Byrdsian harmonies, mock-Shakespearian lyrical bombast, and a fine lot of ambient skronk at the end. As much may be said -- minus the skronk -- of "Let's Get Tired," so deploying the demo for the "What'll We Do" next highlights the latter tune's major Elliott Smithian virtues, which get another airing in "Song W + Song L." Clearly, this kind of thing can go on all day and thankfully doesn't, with the intrusion of "Sweet Owl," a clever, whimsical pop tossoff that would've slotted perfectly on any Badfinger LP. "Tin Floor 51," "Lower the Gas Prices, Howard Johnson," and "Half Awake (Deb)" all flaunt their minor Alex Chiltonian vices proudly, with the latter's hook a thing of lethal earworm beauty. "Coming Through" invites -- no, forces -- open a window in the listener's head, the better for such harmonic sunshine to crisp all the cobwebs therein. "We Can Win Missouri" flashes by like some decayed two-stoplight town, and "Same Speed" is also soon in the rearview mirror, leaving little more than a pleasant sensation. "Song 1000" is an instant classic and as close to punk as these tender folk get. "Yellow Missing Signs" is clever and widely blogged McCartneyesque fluff, but the country-tinged "Letter Divine" is far superior and the gloryhallaloo windup of "Bended" leaves your head in similar shape. "Bastard of Rome" rounds off the long, long set with an uptempo raver as delirious as anything I've heard all year before disintegrating in a welter of gentle chaos.

Psychotropic verdict: This is less a collection of (admittedly superior) sweepings and more the band's White Album, a field of aural gumdrops seeming to spread in every direction, including up.

----
Follow us on Twitter @SFAllShookDown, follow Ron Garmon @RockyRedGlare, and like us at Facebook.com/SFAllShookDown.