Rafter — Sex, Death, Cassette

The greatness of Rafter's Sex, Death, Cassette is 100 per cent reflected on the album cover. Do people even pay attention to album covers anymore? They should! Especially if it's as important to the record as it is to this one. A splattered mess of rainbows, skulls, hearts, ghetto blasters, forests and lightning, the artwork is a perfect preview to the sound of this odd album. Rafter Roberts doesn't have much of a voice and it's set to medium the entire way through, but the horns, tickling keyboards, frantic bass and other-worldly instrumentation help elevate the sound as a whole to high. The 21 songs, which only a few of hit the three-minute mark, end up sounding like a private bedroom experiment a lot of the time with strange, sometimes personal vocal and instrumental interludes scattered throughout. But there are enough oddball gems to ensure the Beck-meets-Unicorns-record stays afloat. In the end, it's the carefree, indie-pop, DIY feeling that keep things interesting and worth hearing.