Good Morning, Mr. Good

Recorded by Steve Albini, Ring, Cicada offers some decently hard math rock from the Midwest, with leanings in prog rock and metal. Mostly instrumental with a few vocal tracks, some songs are concise and well done while others are mediocre. Track #1 is by far the best song. After that, they seem to be aiming for a specific sound without any real innovation. The promo note’s reference to Polvo and Shellac is total self-flattery. 1, 10, 2, 9

1. catchy vocals, great mathy groove. well written song.
2. midtempo instrumental hard and relentless
3. another relentless instrumental, anthemic
4. slow intro builds into a poppy swung groove, ends slow
5. repetitive prog instrumental, with start stop transitions
6. midtempo with vocals. steady riff, ends sweet
7. nice and hard, lots of trills, catchy metal with solo at end.
8. funny chord progression, kind of metal.
9. lazy midtempo with decent vocals, prog/math at end
10. nice opening riff, great mathy changes, pretty hard.
11. poppy chord progression, too typical.