Geoff Geis

go to review URL link to read full text - MungBeing

Geoff Geis‘ quirky baritone is familiar if you’ve ever attended any Pizza! or Big Whup shows around town. His spastic dance moves while playing guitar (reminiscent of Alec Ounsworth) have endeared him to many a fan. But for the last half of 2010, Geis funneled his enthusiasm into an album’s worth of solo material. The results are being presented as “Princess,” a record (and also a cassette) appropriately setting aside the punk and cranking out the pop via kaleidoscopic electronica. Songs such as “Where Have You Been (All My Life)?” is most likely the most subdued melody we’ve heard Geis sing, but the simplicity of both rhythm and sentiment serve as a nice foil to tunes such as “Mother of All” and its clever cynicism. Released on his own label, Vanity Projects, guests on “Princess” include members of Moses Campbell and Tyler Sabbag of Pizza!, and it isn’t all fluffy and pretty. However, it is 24 minutes of charmingly textured pop that could easily bring robots and synth-heads together. - Buzzbands.la

Here comes a genre-crossing playful solo effort from Geoff Geis, frontman behind Pizza! and Big Whup (as well as various experimental incarnations of said bands, including the Avant-Garde Volkpenis). The album brings you in with a simple yet cinematic synth track that evokes a Morricone flute intro, yet removes itself from being taken too seriously with its sarcasm-laced title: “Very Important Stuff.” Geis displays great range on this charming, eclectic album. Mostly relying on simple synthesized beats to communicate a story, he moves into full instrumentation on “Superbowl B4 De-lete,” which is perhaps more recognizable stylistically, but pulls back with the simple heartfelt ballad “Where Have You Been (All My Life)?,” covering fellow Alabama statesman country-soul singer Arthur Alexander. Country elements continue on “The Lonesome Part,” and again on the lighthearted closer, “All These Ways That I Divide My Time,” which feels as though it might be right at home amongst the bluegrass stylings of Bill Monroe or the Foggy Mountain Boys. The interspersing of brief, enchanting instrumentals, some of which place the listener in a futuristic adventure setting, work to give the album the feel of a film soundtrack. Geis also manages to transform a political commentary on Saddam Hussein’s career as a dictator into a catchy party jam. His ability to inspire dancing to a chorus line of “and they won’t count the bodies” in reference to Hussein’s genocidal massacre of the Kurds is hilariously ingenious.

—Walt! Gorecki - LA Record