Polk

"Ames" was written, recorded and produced by one man, the band's lead member. You can hear this, not just in the lo-fi recording but in the fact that the flow of ideas is lacking.But really, don't worry about it. Because "Polk" is going to turn heads, whether you were a fan from the beginning or not. Featuring talented friends from other bands, such as Death Cab for Cutie, the sophomore effort is an over all improvement from the first. The songs are more complete, recorded with more shine and crisp detail. The album, packaged in a very cool digipack, offers better pictures that relate with the band's "desert rock" sound that they have further emphasized this time round. There are the very cool instrumental tracks (Nova Prt. 1, Somber Reptiles), the quicker paced accessible 'songs' ( distance is the sun, area, the swimmer, chemistry, photograph the ancestors) and the bulk of the rest lie in the simple acoustics with ambience taking us to the scorching desert in between songs. Some could call the tracks in between the songs 'filler', but like myself, don't be surprised if you're caught humming their choruses or punchlines long after listening to the album.