There's nothing platonic about Pearly's raw loving

Pearly Sweets and the Platonics make no bones about the fact that Pearly's voice is the center of their sound. Every keyboard lurch and drum fill seems designed to bring another consonant to the fore, and each crescendo culminates in a scream or a growl. In "Khaki Girl," Pearly caps his rolling keyboard lines with machine-gun chords that emphasize the bitterness in point-ed lines like "Who is your best friend now?" The Platonics, meanwhile, provide smooth rhythmic backup. Karl Tupper's, BK '00, bass lines fill out the melodic gaps left by Pearly's staccato playing, and Carl Ehrhardt, TC '00, adds drum flourishes right before cutting out completely, showcasing the song's stop-and-start dynamics.

The band generally sticks to this formula during its uptempo tracks—the vocals are what provide the variation between songs. Pearly frequently changes his singing style, alternating between the sing-song verses of "Paper on the Tray," the rhythmic half-shout of "18," and the outright screams of the choruses in "I Like it Raw" and "Give a Brother a Chance." His stylistic versatility also allows for greater lyrical variety. The rapid-fire delivery of lyrics like "I got the acumen to determine just exactly who wants to get fucked up" prevents them from getting bogged down in braggadocio. Lines like "Raekwon you are the woman of the Wu-Tang Clan/Rae is such an effeminate name/and your style it's just not the same" drag "Khaki Girl" dangerously close to becoming a novelty track, but Pearly's bitter snarl saves the song from such a fate.

Lest it get pigeonholed as a stereotypical rock album, Pick Yourself Up also includes five songs that feature only Pearly and an acoustic piano. "Stolen Goods," the first of these tracks, comes off as an obligatory ballad, but the rest of the stripped-down songs find Pearly using the more intimate format to stretch out a bit. Although "BBQ 2000" starts out with Pearly emoting as in "Stolen Goods," it ends with him undercutting the sentiment with dissonant piano chords and a rambling offhand monologue. The beginning of "Goodbye Clothes" contains only quiet vocals and a sparse left-hand piano line, giving the song such a sweetly mournful, after-hours feel that it's a shame when Pearly steps in with a more forceful right-hand instrumental solo. "Actress" contains some subtle vocal overdubbing that makes me wish that Pearly would use this technique more often. Finally, the album ends with "Hot Potato Jr." a brief, whimsical track that provides the album with a nice, albeit anticlimactic, sense of closure.

SARA EDWARD-CORBETT/YH

Overall, Pick Yourself Up would flow better if Pearly Sweets and the Platonics brought the innovative spirit of the acoustic tracks to the other songs on the album. The notably softer sound in the five piano tracks sets them apart (only "Actress" could be turned into a song for the whole band), which makes Pick Yourself Up sound as if the band took two separate EPs and pieced them together. It would be interesting to see the band depart from its standard uptempo formula more often, since the rare moments when it does so are some of the album's most memorable. The flowing surf-rock beat, prominent bass, and minimalistic keyboard intro to "Cruel to Be Kind" offset the normal crunching chords and stuttering beats nicely. The brief vocal overdubs that lead into the chorus of "I Like it Raw" also grab attention, but they make the song sound like a Stones knockoff.

Still, once the chorus hits, these concerns get drowned out by the noise of Pearly stepping up and intoning "I like it raw!!!" over another driving keyboard riff. For those who also like it raw—either in the form of pounding chords or stripped-down sentiment—Pick Yourself Up is an excellent listen. And the man has chops. (Garbage Czar) —Eliot Rose

[Pearly Sweets—Abraham Levitan, TD '00—is on Herald staff.]

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