You always become what you despise, and now as I sit here trying to figure out what I love so much about The Intelligence, my thoughts drift to a distant place called “back in the day.” I recall, with not a little trepidation, my days as a reluctant freshman in Albany, NY, going to shows to watch kids in Sonic Youth t-shirts cover songs from Mellow Gold, drink themselves mute, sit in their own aesthetic/literal filth, etc. I declared (to pretty much no one) that there was no singular element in modern white-person music I hated more than put-on boredom. It’s an aspect of punk that never appealed to me - I like fervor and spittle and rage and standing up, not sitting down. Until now, I guess.

Basically the recording project of some pud named Lars Finberg, The Intelligence comes off as idle, cocky and a little stupid on Deuteronomy.  In a voice somewhere in between Mark E. Smith and Andy Partridge, Finberg (not a Brit!) slurps little nothings in your ear like: “Going out with you is like going out with a cop.” Thanks, you’re too kind. Great, stooped-shouldered moments like that are all over this thing, and it’s sort of amazing that it’s so appealing despite no apparent aspirations therein. The garage-y goodness on this record is so misanthropic, it almost feels voyeuristic: the opportunity to peer into the mind of someone with a masterful grasp of his own ambivalence... I mean that in a good way! Seriously!

Jeff Tobias