The Binary Marketing Show, a group of four musicians originally hailing from the south and partly based out of Bushwick, has released a new CD that evidences some serious effort at an album, and one that really feels like an album all the way through – a soul-searching blistering little thing which they’ve modestly called Pattern.  The band has managed to attract a small but dedicated fan base over the years, but with this latest venture the project is starting to move into new territory.

When you first listen to the CD a few obvious references come to mind right away – Animal Collective, Akron/Family and Arcade Fire, to name a few.  And while a casual inspection give an impression of a lack of originality, repeated listens show without a doubt that Pattern is a lot more than the sum of its influences. 

Take the first track, “Shape of Your Head.” Toward the “climax” – if you could call it that – the band creates vocal textures that straddle the line between the almost-tribal voice approaches of earlier Animal Collective, and the anthemic chords and unisons of Arcade Fire.  But beneath the surface, the listener can hear how the harmonies might more evoke strains of a Southern choir, making noise over some baptismal scene. 

Songs here never seem to start and stop; they just happen.  Listen through “628 Hz,” for example.  The song fades in from the last track with a half-sentimental, half-joking trumpet duet, and then falls into place over a wavering accordion texture before the propulsive guitar riff and drums start in.  The tension builds while Abram Morphew and Bethany Carder sing the verse twice.  And each time, just when the tension reaches a logical release point and you expect some pop chorus payload, the song breaks down completely, Carder’s vocals soaring over the sudden silence like whistling toy rockets. 

Then without warning a three-feel comes in and the whole arsenal – guitars, multiple tracks of Carder’s vocals, guitar effects, synth, and electronic clicks – creates a heady new jam with zero reference to any earlier parts of the song.  While the recording here doesn’t achieve the kind of hard-hitting effect I think they were going for (the first transition in particular sounding tinny and unconvincing), the listener can at least get an idea of the massive, almost Sigur Ros-like soundscape they had in mind.  Conrad Burnham’s guitar riff comes above it all with a throbbing, yearning line that sounds like it’s ready to push off into some totally new sonic realm.  Then the whole thing falls apart. 

Sometimes it seems the music struggles between clutter as part of the medium, and clutter as a distraction.  “Present Day Armor” is a good example – in the first half the weird tenor horn line and the blurry moaning textures on top make it almost impossible to engage with the song without thinking about the band’s intentions. But in the second half of the song, when drummer Jason Meeks settles into a rimshot groove, it delivers one of the best moments of the album.  Here the electronic bleeps overtop contribute something like the authentic static of a record player, not the annoying static you get when you’re stealing HBO.

But with Pattern it looks like they might be finally on their way to striking the right balance. It always feels like there’s something huge they’re on the verge of articulating, something in the big reverb push and collapse of each track, something that isn’t gratifying because of some ultimate payoff but the sprawling explosions along the way.  For listeners looking for pop hooks this will probably disappoint; for anyone listening closer, the whole album is filled with some quietly unforgettable stuff.

Pattern is available at CDbaby, Dive Records, Lala, iTunes and Amazon.