Gram Rabbit

Gram Rabbit is under the gun to follow their stellar debut Music to Start a Cult To, a love letter from the character-driven Joshua Tree collective to their spaced-out cult of acid-dance worshippers, the Royal Order of Rabbits. Despite its deliberately insular origins, Cult was widely praised above and below the radar, and walked away with a couple "Best New" nods in the process. Game tight, message received.

But following debuts is always a tricky step, and it's naïve to think that there aren't going to be stumbles along the way. There are but a few on the aptly named Cultivation, mostly on the busy vocal gymnastics of "Charlie's Kids" and "Jesus and I," two songs that show off some ambitious compositional moves but just can't stick the landings. Same goes for "Paper Heart," an orchestral maneuver in the dark that sounds like it came out of Bernard Herrmann's Psycho closet. Maybe because the vamp merger between Janet Leigh and Gram Rabbit frontwoman Jesika von Rabbit makes sense, as one listen to Cultivation can tell you that she's more in front of the show than ever.

But it's when she merges with Gram Rabbit's hypnotic grooves that the band's messianic machine really locks in place. From the stunning "Crossing Guards With Guns" -- a song that Kevin Shields should have made yesterday, My Bloody Valentine reunion or not -- to the narcotic flow of "Waiting in the Kountry," "Hares Don't Have Tea" and "Slopoke," Cultivation finds the Gram Rabbit waving goodbye to their wonderland past and bidding a variegated welcome to their, and our, uncertain future. As Von Rabbit moans on "Follow Your Heart," "make amends, follow trends."

Because coming together is hard to do. - Scott Thill, Morphizm.com

It's hard to imagine yourself under the spell of a group that calls itself "The Royal Order of Rabbits," sure. But Cultivation is the name of Gram Rabbit's game here, and the four-piece from Joshua Tree, CA does a bang-up job of scoring new converts. For those who missed Music to Start a Cult To, Rabbit's wacked-out 2004 debut, a primer: jumbling up electronica, country, rock, disco, and folk, and throwing in the odd bunny reference, the band burrowed itself deep into the minds of avant-gardists and desert-based devil worshipers alike -- when they said "music to start a cult to," they meant it. Here, though, frontwoman Jesika von Rabbit and company tone down the satanic stuff in favor of a more straightforward, bunny-flecked weirdness. "Jesus & I" sounds like Madonna on LSD; "Waiting in the Kountry" splices prog rock through a slinky meditation on "watching the goats grow"; "Angel Song," one of the few selections not sung by von Rabbit, revisits '60s mysticism with a straight face; "Crossing Guards with Guns" synths up a neo-Columbine nightmare; and "Follow Your Heart"'s piano plinks along sadly to a single directionless verse. A batch of cottontails less cute and more willfully eccentric isn't apt to come along anytime soon, but watch and see if the Brotherhood of the Hare's ranks don't swell considerably with this release. Better make room in the rabbit hole. ~ Tammy La Gorce, All Music Guide