Menomena "Friend & Foe"- -Album Review

Portland, Oregon's Menomena are an experimental rock trio who missed the memo on experimental music: they've made theirs poppy, melodic, transformative and enjoyable. Their third album, Friend & Foe is not an sonic experiment in the sense of Brian Eno, but rather a sonic adventure in the sense of the Flaming Lips -- only done, as with "experiments," in an entirely unique way. Deeply moving tracks like "Air Aid" alongside the stunning broodiness of "My My" will make Menomena a phenomenon not worth missing; unlike any other band today, they harness the spontaneity of electronica with the bare-knuckled gusto of rock.

Menomena have perfected the jumpy irregularity that is de rigeur for indie bands with the label "experimental" -- but that is not why their newest album, Friend & Foe, is a great piece of indie rock. Where other experimenters are happy pushing the sonic envelope -- adding strange sounds, divergent tempos, awkward beats into the mix -- Menomena refuse to do so without first writing compelling and honest melodies that exist as the moving centers around which all the layers of mixing, changing, challenging sounds rotate.

Friend & Foe is first a great pop album and second a "challenge" to the status quo. This is an album of many voices -- somber, swift, sassy -- that all bare the Menomenian sense of solid songwriting. Menomena is not a band that is hiding behind the moniker "experimental" in order to create half-assed sloppy songs; Friend & Foe will move you and get you dancing and disorient you and rock your pants off. Seriously. All at the same time.