Collegiate Times

Many media industries have developed in ways that their creators couldn?t have imagined. Television, when it was first invented and sewn into the fabric of American media culture, was thought to be a great opportunity to level out the education gap in our nation. It was hoped to be the most pervasive and most beneficial of all media. Alas, 50 years later, we?re watching reruns of COPS and scheduling our work around any of a number of incomprehensibly foolish reality television shows.

Television, at least in its first half-century, has gone from promising to stupefying ? from good to bad. And it certainly hasn?t been the only medium to do so.

Take the mainstream pop music industry, which presumably started on a certain base of talent and creativity and has since fluctuated back and forth, dancing between excellence and garbage.

(In case you were wondering, we?re in one of those garbage patches right now).

Now, to avoid any later embarrassment if The Secret Machine?s ?Ten Silver Drops? sells all of two copies, I want to make it clear that I?m not promising that this band will revolutionize the mainstream. That?s a big task.

All I?m saying is that I?d be glad if they did and that I think they have the chops and the potential likeability to do so. The Machines are a Dallas based group comprised of Curtis brothers Brandon and Benjamin along with drummer friend Josh Garza who operate on a musical plane similar to that of classic rock bands like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. However, they still manage to maintain a certain distance and sense of individuality despite the frequent comparisons. The band considers their music ?space rock? and they?re right. The songs are often atmospheric and filtered through a mechanized fabric with all sorts of solar sounds including double-octave vocals, clangs, beeps, and even a few sci-fi song lyrics for good measure.

?Ten Silver Drops,? although not slated for street release until April, was released on iTunes on the last day of February and, when compared to its predecessor (2004?s ?Now Here is Nowhere?) it?s clear that the band has come back down to earth.

This, however, is a good thing.

A lot of the songs revolve around typical pop topics like troubled, uncertain relationships, youthful alienation and cautious hope. The album?s first single, ?Alone, Jealous, and Stoned,? has all three of these aspects: vocalist Brandon Curtis? voice sounds like a loud whisper when he sings ?Idle kids with Idle Hearts / Some of them went too far / And some are still waiting there / Sittin? at home / What am I doing? / Boy waitin? by the phone / Alone, jealous, and stoned.? It?s easy songwriting but with the well-crafted sound drama that takes place before our ears, the matter grows in significance and, in the end, is quite moving.

Other tunes are a bit quirkier in sound and word, like the second track ?All at Once (It?s Not Important)? which runs around a repetitive drumbeat, beefing up to a dance-pop climax and then bringing the beat home, or ?I Hate Pretending,? a catchy and slightly angry tribute to an uncomfortable run in with the law.

The songs are long (only one of them is under five minutes) but they need to be. What keeps the Machines afloat is their sound. The layers, the rich, airy harmonies and the occasionally U2-esque guitar licks keep the songs interesting well beyond the five minutes, so much that even the longer songs seem to build, burst and burn out all too quickly. And in this way, the band returns to the best work of legends like Floyd (?Time,? ?Shine on You Crazy Diamond,? etc.) and Zeppelin (?In the Light,? ?When the Levee Breaks,? etc.). Songs go on, often built around a repeated rhythm and a repeated melody, but it?s still fresh, still new and still unique.

The band moves like a wave ? from classic to uniquely modern. From 70?s rock to Cosmic rock.

In essence, they move from good to better, which is more than you can say about a lot of pop music.