The Rogers Sisters Issue #27

The Invisible Deck (Too Pure)

By Amber Drea
Published: March 1st, 2006 | 12:00am

The third full-length from this Brooklyn-based trio delivers more of the tightly written garage pop it perfected so well on its previous release, Three Fingers, while expanding on the quiet psychedelia of that album’s slow jam, “Five Months.” It’s rare that a band can alternate seamlessly between catchy dance tracks and intense, emotion-filled ballads.

With production by Tim Barnes, The Invisible Deck’s sound is noisy and intricate, nuanced and raw. The muddy quality of the mix tends to swallow the power of the songs, which lies in all three players’ abilities to work together to form hook-heavy, rhythm-driven compositions. Both Jennifer Rogers and Miyuki Furtado’s vocals blend with the instrumentation, and they continue to incorporate call-and-response duality and textured harmonies. Rogers’ vocal style has changed from a bratty abrasion to more of a clenched-throat sweetness and the deliberate simplicity of her guitar riffs enhanced by distortion and feedback reveal technical abilities leftover from her prog-y math rock days.

The group’s reputation as a party band is overshadowed by dark, socially critical. On “The Light,” Furtado speak-sings, “Terror tamed the nonbeliever / Murder makes us more than hungry,” and “Money Matters” addresses American spending. They ask questions like “Why won’t you say what’s wrong? / Why won’t anyone believe your story?” and “Do you have a dream that does not belong to you?” The Rogers Sisters not only make you shake your booty; they make you think, too.