Broken Spindles is an instrumental outfit helmed by Joel Peterson.

Joel Peterson is the bassist for The Faint, the one with the 80s-est hair, supposedly the perfectionist of the band, whose recalcitrant onstage sunken-Anglo concentration-face often looks like scorn for us needbags in the crowd.

The Faint is that group whose first album wrapped lame lyrics around captivating guitar hooks, and whose second album wrapped wild keyboards around libidinal screeds. Their third and most consistent album further out-techs their previous work, but already sounds dated, and not for some obvious retro-reason: the industrial hellscape they conjure brings to mind too many Reznorisms and too many straight-to-video fallout movies about people in leather fighting in derbymobiles for some weird commodities like amethysts. The Faint's a blast live, though, revving up their smoke machines and waving their synth-free hands around like a bunch of dang incubuses. They're one of Saddle Creek's treats.

Saddle Creek's that Omaha-centric label run by that elfin fellow with the bright eyes. I can't make fun of him anymore because I was just wowed by a performance he did with his gazillion piece ensemble, during which he kept his afterschool psychodrama to a minimum, except for a spell where he overscratched his arm in faux-torment.

Joel Peterson can be spotted in photos all over the Internet rubbing or squeezing or holding his arm, too. Maybe the gubmint's testing something on them Nebraskans that's giving them a rash, and their anti-consumer stance won't yield to facilitate the purchase of some Benadryl. Or maybe Peterson's arm is tired from programming all this percussive racket for this Broken Spindles project.

There's always something kind of test tube baby about laptopica, but Peterson found interesting ways to grant his record some organic textures; though a bit of the disc was composed using Reason software and sounds to some degree like what you'd expect in a Faint instrumental piece, the album benefits from guest guitarists, live bells, chimes and odd instruments, and some burbly-gurgly-crackly undertones that link several tracks, occasionally reminiscent of crinkling fabric or a palpitating heart.

The disc is too propulsive to be background music, but too modest to be your evening's main event. When the songs slow down (see "The Oldest Accident") they unfold fluidly and not unlike patches of Tortoise's Millions Now Living Will Never Die, bringing to mind a visit to the world's hippest indoor aquarium. The slithering jackhammer "Connection in Progress" is the antithesis of the mellow material, with its grinding beats and frenetic guitars (listen for some Iron Maiden polish-reewwl scattered throughout). The beginning of "Twitching and Restless" is perfect for a watching miserable retirees and pregnant smokers trigger their car alarms in a depressing parking lot, until its last nine minutes, when it erupts into a digital slurry. Sounds like Mad Max using a Jiffy Lube's equipment to perform orthodontics in Voltron's womb. Or maybe like Chernobyl's hedges being trimmed by a 767 piloted by vomiting zomborgs having a marital squabble.

So I'm getting all into the album, and a friend starts trashing it; some of her best lines were: "Whip out the glowsticks, we're going to a Tampa nightclub"; "This must be what plays during the gripping chase scene"; and "Didn't Sam Prekop release this four years ago?" Ah well. I predict that we'll lose Joel Peterson to scoring-- Broken Spindles sprang from an attempt to soundtrack a skateboard vid, and at live appearances, he's playing the music as accompaniment to a film. I think he's got a miniature monolith in him yet, though, provided Broken Spindles survives the "Damaged Goods" tour with Crooked Fingers, Burning Airlines, and Twisted Sister.

-William Bowers, October 18th, 2002