The Presidents of the United States of America always struck me as a kind of weird anomaly on the pop charts. Not because they played two- and three-string guitars. And not because their lead singer was a funny-looking bald guy. No, the reason I was so very surprised that the Presidents became a veritable pop dynamo is: the animal fetish.

Oh, stop looking so innocent. You know what I'm talking about: "Kitty at my foot and I want to... touch it." Touch it?! And I'm not even going to get into that line about finding the lizard "all brown and hard." Ick! Still, despite a degree of sexual deviancy, the Presidents, at their peak, possessed a kind of cutesy quirk you couldn't help but love. I mean, how can you fail when you have songs about Boll Weevils?

Presidents frontman Chris Ballew is all over this album like he would be a feisty armadillo. He's an old friend of Jason Trachtenburg's, having collaborated with the guy before the Presidents became the longest-named band to receive heavy rotation on MTV. So when it came time for Trachtenburg to record Revolutions Per Minute, it only makes sense that Ballew would step up to man the decks.

This album showcases the kind of wacky, off-kilter humor and pop sensibilities that no doubt led these two to collaborate in the first place. But this isn't to say Revolutions Per Minute sounds like a Presidents album; if anything, it bears a closer resemblance to a more politically-oriented They Might Be Giants. Acoustic guitars, synths, accordion, and drums are the primary instruments here, although pianos and string instruments (or, at least, synthesized string instruments) can occasionally be heard as well. And if the album's arrangements and production are far from transcendent, they're certainly good enough to warrant a few affirmative nods of the head.

The songs themselves range from well-executed quirk-pop to... er... damned annoying quirk-pop. There's a fine line between "cute" and "irritating," and Trachtenburg doesn't always know when to let up. Examples of this include the decidedly unnecessary falsetto wailing on "Whatever Happened to You," and the awkward, obnoxious intro to "Ginseng High School March." Also, as evidenced by a number of the album's song titles (the aforementioned one notwithstanding), the lyrics here can be, to put it bluntly, really, really dumb. Yes, it's true that Trachtenburg occasionally spins a clever yarn, but it's hard to truly praise the lyrical content of an album that contains lines like, "The gasoline is letting us know where we are/ We're traveling far with Aunt Arlene, Aunt Arlene." I could tell you who Aunt Arlene is, but it wouldn't help.

Of course, despite its few glaring flaws, most of these songs are pretty darned catchy, well-produced, and just plain fun. When the revolution comes-- and you know it will-- we can only hope it'll be as wacky and harmless as Revolutions Per Minute.

-Matt LeMay