The Moldy Peaches’ shtick is to mumble dejectedly but tunefully about sex and drugs over dragged-out, blatantly half-assed acoustic indie pop. On their first full-length, The Moldy Peaches (Rough Trade), Adam Green fumbles through incongruous metal-ish solos; Kimya Dawson laughs through her sappier lines; someone puffs apathetically on a flute or a trombone; the drumming’s always lackadaisical; and the poetry’s usually off by half a syllable. The second verse of the three-minute anthem “Who’s Got the Crack?” goes, “I am a goat / In a moat / With a boat,” and there’s an uncertain pause before the overloud chorus kicks in: “Who’s got the crack? / Who-ooo-ooo’s got the crack?” The next verse rhymes “poofy” with “roofie.” The melodies and beats are all the sort that take longer to listen to than to write–the chorus of “Jorge Regula” is the riff from “Low Rider” slowed down and converted to nonsense syllables, and “Downloading Porn With Davo” is a sloppy sock-hop ditty with lines like “Tried to buy your love but I came up short / So I fucked a little waitress in exchange for a snort.” If the Moldy Peaches were merely lo-fi, they’d be merely annoying–it’s their particular combination of lo-fi and lowbrow that’s entertaining. They open for the Strokes (see Spot Check); the show is sold-out. Friday, October 5, midnight, Metro, 3730 N. Clark; 773-549-0203.
