I kind of like the music, but I definitely don’t like lead man Todd Portnowitz’s vocals and his overblown lyrics. Just because you name drop Walt Whitman or put a William Blake etching on the cover of your album doesn’t give your diction or delivery immediate merit. Maybe Distaccati is yet another example of why Bob Dylan was ultimately bad for a good majority of the music he has inspired. After Bob’s early efforts, anyone with a bookish bent and access to a backing band could put out an album of folk-rock meandering and consider it literary. Keep it simple and the music shapes itself. Inject too much pseudo-intellectualism and suddenly listening becomes more tedious than fun. Musically, Clock Hands Strangle does mix it up with some unexpected time changes and trombone backing that gives their sound intriguing depth, but the sum of its parts, vaulting between wordy reflective ballads and more up-tempo numbers, lacks cohesion.

(Chocolate Lab Records, 801 S. Wells Street, #709, Chicago, IL 60607)