Review: The Bynars - s/t

Let’s get this out of the way straight off: The self-titled debut from local synth-driven pop rockers The Bynars doesn’t offer up anything you haven’t heard before. At all.

Apart from a few subtle touches, it’s an album driven largely by one of the most time-tested formulas in rock music: Twelve songs (the perfect number, not too few and not too many) that on average barely puncture the three-plus minute mark, each with an ear for hooks, a good melody and soothing harmonized vocals. The players are serious students of some of the most successful bands in popular music, namely the Beach Boys and the Cars, two bands whose DNA can be found strewn across the record in sizeable chunks.

Purists (i.e. critics, record store clerks and fans who own more than one Pere Ubu album) scoff at bands like the Bynars for precisely these things. They lack  the imagination and that dare to be different iconoclasm that rock snobs want so much to embrace, but to be fair they don’t really have to. The Bynars won’t likely spin listeners into a psycho fanboy frenzy, but the songs are catchy enough to joyride around in your head for a good while, which for fans not necessarily seeking out rock and roll’s next holy grail should do just fine.