Kitsap band brings old school reference in new, unique package

All the while, Alligators jam outside the box on their debut album ‘Piggy and Cups.’

With each new listen, this album seems to become more and more enigmatic.

Granted, it’s intriguing right from the title — “Piggy and Cups” — what does that even mean?

It’s the first full-length album from Alligators — a Kitsap five-piece based in “Bremerton/Port Orchard/Poulsbo/Olalla” according to the band’s myspace page.

“There is no ‘The’ because we are clearly not alligators,” the band responded to an inquiry about how it got its name. “We’re humans. Probably.”

It might, or might not, have come from a David Bowie song, they say.

As the sonic nuances of “Piggy and Cups” subtly reveal themselves the mystery continues. Rather than offering any specific explanation or definition of the band, the album’s elements seem to add layers to the Alligators’ cloak — a very chameleon-like cloak for a band of Alligators, I must say.

From acoustic guitar with orchestral undertones to an a capella, hand-clapping, gospelish refrain to the band’s video-game-y, sometimes Pink Floydian electronics and Beatles-reminscent waterfall harmonies, there is definitely no shortage of diversity on this disc. But, somewhat surprisingly with the amount of variety withheld, there is a certain cohesive quality omnipresent on the album which is difficult to describe.

It sounds something like the sonic equivalent to whatever quality creates the cohesion of the atmosphere — which, I know, is a lame analogy, but — while you can’t exactly see or hear it directly, whatever it is, it’s ever-present, floating in the ambience of all 11 tracks on “Piggy and Cups.”

Somehow it’s technologic and organic, all at once.

Joshua Trembley and Zach Bronow’s six strings fuse with Bradley Pooler’s digitalia and Trembley’s wailing vocals to create an ocean of indie rock, underscored by the tide of the rock-steady rhythm section with Tyler Lewis on bass and Kit Arper on drums.

And, lightly interwoven, it’s all punctuated by conversational poetry and lyric, creating a wide-range of emotion from start to end. From the euphoric to the philosophic, the melodramatic to the downright doom-ridden — see lyrics to “Original Fear.”

“What’s it gonna take for you to realize,” Trembley sings in a haunting falsetto. “One day, very soon, we’re all gonna die.”

Incidentally, that catchy little tune was requested and played on 107.7 The End’s Locals Only show last Sunday.

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