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Saturday Looks Good To Me
Fill Up The Room
By Chris Pacifico
Saturday Looks Good to Me may perform like it’s a Monday morning while trying to sing and play with dour pep that will get them through the week. Imagine Neutral Milk Hotel with a bit of soul. Led by group captain Fred Thomas, SLGTM has a melodious penchant for wavering acoustics and rickety instrumentation that flows rather crisply and sways like a hammock into a world of doo-wop, R&B and some tropical garnishes. Fill up the Room, the band’s seventh release, is by far its most AM sunshine pop-orientated effort to date. Peppered with dulcet guitar fuzz and the good ol’ glockenspiel that pops up from time to time, Fill Up the Room straddles the line between the mellow psych pop of Super Furry Animals mixed with Polyphonic Spree minus oh, about 50 of its members.
There are moments where the songs sound too similar, but Thompson’s mellow voice stays the same and somehow the diverse instrumentation in each song is able to blend in with his rainy day disposition. Fill Up the Room is lonesome and lively all at once. Numbers like the calypso dub of “Whitey Hands” stay lethargic and intricate while “Make a Plan” is a trotting lazy Sunday on the moon. Peppy and refreshing, yet morose and somber, Fill Up the Room is a soft journey with a sense glee that isn’t annoying.
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