Bisco rocks the charts and Deep Ellum

The Disco Biscuits’ new album, Señor Boombox, has a serious case of multiple personalities – but it’s far from a disorder.

The Philadelphia foursome serves up a delectable array of tracks that contrast greatly, but somehow blend together to create an impressive piece of art.

SeÖor Boombox currently sits at No.13 on the Billboard electronic charts and No. 48 on the independent charts. Don’t throw it so quickly into the same category with Moby or Paul Oakenfold, though.

The guys use a large amount of electronic effects. Track two even comes off as trance-like, but the Disco Biscuits are rock ‘n’ roll.

Like many bands thriving in the “jam band” scene, such as Widespread Panic and the String Cheese Incident, Bisco finds itself in a struggle to not be confined to that genre. This act is perpetrated by those people who find it easier to define a band’s music style by forcing them into predetermined molds. But, along with other bands newer to the scene like Galactic and Particle, Bisco is making it difficult to simply file and forget.

There’s no musical style left out of the mix on Señor Boombox, almost as if the band set out to make the most diverse album possible, while still achieving continuity.

Relate listening to the album to stirring the ingredients for cookies. At the beginning there are larger concentrated bits of the ingredients.

For the first half of the disc, each track really differs from the next.

Track one, ‘Hope,’ adds in a smidge of electronics (just a pinch), but relies mostly on a happy go lucky surf sound. Lyrically the track is friendly in tone, telling listeners that ‘hope fuels generations/and hope can start your car/and hope is the root of ecstasy/it’s nothing but a star.’

Upon the first listen one might think that track two, ‘Float Like a Butterfly,’ wound up on the wrong disc with its house-style beat and dance breaks. Lyrically, the track relies mostly on repetition of the line ‘float like a butterfly.’ You soon realize, however, that it’s all part of the master plan. Track two is a large clump of chocolate chip electronica waiting to be better stirred into the mix.

What comes next is almost startling. The intro to track three involves the sound of helicopters overhead and gunfire. The mosher “Floodlights” is a pump-you-up rock song with wailing guitar and very little electronic aspects.

The band suggests that you “run for your life/and you hide/from the lights/as they shine from the sky/when your life’s on the line/and you think in your mind/are you ready to die.”

The next track, “Jigsaw Earth,” changes everything up again. The dub-based track is pleasant to the ear and the keyboards really finish out the production.

For the remainder of the album it appears that the ingredients have been combined to produce a homogenous form. The rest of the tracks take full advantage of all aspects of the Disco Biscuits’ varied musical skills, and the guys add a little of this or a little of that wherever needed.

Just as presentation is the key in food preparation, so it is in music production. Bisco does a good job of not overindulging in any one ingredient. Instead, the disc presents the diverse, yet harmonious world of the Disco Biscuits for all to hear.

If your interest is peaked, the Disco Biscuits will be performing Wednesday at Tree’s. It should be off the chain. See you there.