The Glass have all the initial trappings of any number of throwaway bands that have deluged the category of “dance rock,” which usually means one part post-punk, one part 80s morgue electro groove, and one thoroughly bored critic wading through stacks of bands competing to be the next act to have Simian Mobile Disco stutter cut a remix of their all important first MySpace single. Fortunately, The Glass have so much more than the whiff of that “now sound” once you break the surface impressions. Couples Therapy maps out a morbidly beautiful space with spooky hollows, and shape-shifting rhythms courtesy of Glen Brady’s canny sense for making these songs deeper than just a flat, face-smacking beat. “Fourteen Again” has all the simple, electric flow of a New Order song, mascara-ed in crunching static and a cloudiness not usually found in songs that aim to be this anthemic. They excel at this kind of atmospheric disorientation, where layers of the sound filter in or obscure one another in collisions that slowly lead to melding. “Green Leaves” barely lifts its feet off the floor, a pensive and moping thump surrounded by urban lyrical scenery, bass lines that rush down cramped tenement stairwells, Brady’s crinkling beatfalls, and guitar that sounds like crisply razored-out bits of The Cure. The Glass have something dire, androgynous and “bad touch” about them, a bit of sexy dreariness in Dominque Keegan’s vocal heft, like Bryan Ferry reworking the OMD catalogue. There’s much more Bernard Sumner here than any distant relation to Bloc Party and their minions. Only songs like “Come Alive” stumble into mediocrity, sounding like a Love and Rockets song stolen sloppily by The Presets; it’s the sort of glitch-rock anonymity you’re likely to hear on the McDonald’s DJ menu of your local hipster lounge. Still, that’s one track that barely scuffs the surface on an otherwise incessantly inventive, collar-up/face down, glide through the alleyways of some dark city’s rainy night.
--Terry Sawyer
