Octant is the new project from multi-instrumentalist Matt Steinke, mainstay of such yesterday hopefuls as punk-futurists Mocket and Satisfact. Named after a robotic rhythm machine designed by Steinke composed of programmed mallets and a drum kit, Octant also features the input of Tassy Zimmerman on vocals and keyboards. Their second album, Car Alarms and Crickets, is basically ineffectual pop masquerading under the guise of quasi-electronic posturing.

And so it begins. The idea of a robotic drummer is cute, but the rhythms on this album are nothing extraordinary. While I don't doubt the visual spectacle of a contraption of mallets keeping time on a real drum kit in a live setting, the 4/4 beats on Car Alarms and Crickets could have dealt with diversification of the manual variety.

While the intro doodles around with frequencies and a filter, providing marginally engaging desktop wank, songs like "Laquita Laquita," "Mince Up," and "Millionaire Hairdresser" make no bones about the shameless lightweight sensibility that undercuts the best and worst moments on this disc.

Car Alarms and Crickets' songs sometimes have redeeming qualities-- a bouncy bassline here, for instance, or a mildly catchy three-chord melody there-- but resolutely go-nowhere passages of mindless, repetitious filler such as "Blocks," "Tink Slap," and a 20-minute closing title track comprised of faux-ambience and squirmy digital fidgeting are too much to bear. They don't lend the album an air of musical difficulty, they simply weigh it down and make plain its core deficiencies.

Doubtless this music is bound to appeal to some people, but with so much other great music in the world, why waste time on this? There's no substance, no glimpse of what's going on upstairs. It's essentially a stylistic song cycle to be placed on the shelf alongside other feeble efforts meant to capitalize on somnambulant indie mentalities.

Admittedly, there might be nothing inherently wrong with this mechanism. We all have our indulgences, we all bear the need to satisfy some corporeal craving for the light and calorie-free, and with respect to the members of Octant, we all need to make a living. But to have this urge be so painfully evident day in and day out, the negative implications of these albums rank almost as high as many of the Top 40 travesties we've dealt with in the late-90s-- a case of shit music for shit music's sake. Hate to be direct, but someone had to say it. This music is taking its toll.

-S. Murray