CD Review: Casper & the Cookies -- Modern Silence

Casper & the Cookies

Modern Silence

HHBTM Records

By Scott Roberts

You might not expect “serious” music from a band called Casper& the Cookies. Even leader and principal Cookie Jason NeSmith comes across as ambivalent and almost apologetic about the name in the band’s press kit: “We thought of better names, but this one stuck around.” Regardless of your opinion of the name of the Athens, Ga. band (now a trio after the departure of drummer Joe Rowe), one listen to their newest CD Modern Silence will convince you that even if they don’t take themselves too seriously, Casper & the Cookies are serious about creating interesting, entertaining, and original music and they accomplish this goal brilliantly using anything within arm’s reach in a studio to do so.

Mostly delivered in short (less than three minutes) blasts, the songs on Modern Silence nearly always leave the listener wanting more, drawing you in with an intriguing lyric here (“Just the other night I was the insurgent milkman’s son returning from the war to big fists full of furious flowers” from the positively pretty “Chocolate Cake & Coffee”) or a keyboard riff there (“Nagoya”), then going on to a completely different place in the next song, making it sort of like the aural equivalent of eating at a multi-ethnic food-tasting. This precedent is established from the start with the guitar-driven power-pop of the Big Star-esque opener “Little King” going to the stark, atmospheric beginning of “You Love Me,” which eventually mutates into something a bit more psychedelic with elements of post-punk as well.

Modern Silence is one of those rare CDs (and, indeed, Casper & the Cookies is also one of those rare bands) that feels familiar and brand new at the same. Credit NeSmith for letting go of the reins a bit more on their third full-length and allowing fellow Cookies Kay Stanton and Jim Hicks to contribute several songs that all sit nicely and proudly by NeSmith’s own.

Casper & the Cookies’ refusal to be pigeon-holed and their staunch dedication to their own musical vision, beautifully represented by the vaguely modernist artwork of the CD package by Matt Blanks, make Modern Silence a worthy addition to the already impressive canon of Athens, Ga. music.