Saturday Looks Good to Me

Doug Coombe

Feel-good grooves: Saturday Looks Good to Me

Details

Saturday Looks Good to Me, Hands on Fire, and IJI are scheduled to perform on Monday, November 12.

Modified Arts

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More About

• Phil Elverum
• Fred Thomas
• Calvin Johnson
• Ann Arbor
• The Polyphonic Spree

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God bless K Records' tousled-bedhead messes, but it's a mystery to us what, exactly, Saturday Looks Good to Me are doing on this label's roster. These Ann Arbor, Michigan-based indie-poppers simply have their "gee willikers" stuff a bit too together, you know? Neither Calvin Johnson nor Phil Elverum had a hand in the creation of Fill Up the Room, the band's latest feel-good disc, which lacks the inspired, twee amateurishness the duo usually bring to the projects they tackle. Instead, Saturday just seem to really, reallywant to open for the Polyphonic Spree; all the signs are certainly there. The kind of goofy sing-along choruses and hooks that could gain them entry to the Elephant 6 collective's secret clubhouse? Check. A charismatic cheerleader of a frontman? Uh-huh — Fred Thomas, the kind of guy who can sell a line like "Me and my best friend sleep without any clothes/With books on the bedspread in languages no one knows" without coming off as cloying or creepy. Lyrics that fit the music like a glove but stink on paper? Yup! Melodicas, tape loops, saxes, harpsichords, and glockenspiels strengthen the group's positive glow without being distracting, reminding us how much we dug Belle and Sebastian, back in the day when they wouldn't give interviews.