Fine Motor‘s guitar-heavy pop is much like the gray skies over Philadelphia today: a pristine canvas in muted tones with a little room for hope. Former Philadelphians Daniel Morse and Casey Bell (aka Fine Motor) once made up two thirds of the post-punk outfit Break It Up. Bell also drummed in Myrrias and released a fantastic record of her own before the pair left for Nevada. Loosing no musical momentum in their relocation, the seasoned music veterans display a knack for casual pop songs that progress patiently and evenly with an understated fervor in their latest two-song release. There is something mystically engaging about their pairing of simple and peculiar guitar tones and quiet lyrical repetition.
“Silver Milk” is both subtly playful and cautionary. Bell’s breathy vocals, bolstered gently by Morse, are delivered with a nonchalance matched by the humming rhythm section and familiar chord progressions in guitar. The song’s inherent warmth reveals itself in the gradually unwinding outro, as if all of the song’s energy was intended to be released in the final minute. Turning a track from David Lynch’s Erasrerhead into a dusty, modern ballad, Fine Motor put just the right amount of weight into the vocals of “Lady in the Radiator.” Their version retains the dark sense of longing but turns down the insanity with almost dueling guitar lines. In fact, they work as a duality in various forms for the whole song, climbing in and out of the shadowy melody together with ease.
