Houston, Texas’ 6-piece Sound Team make for an interesting prospect; creating with ‘Movie Monster’ one of the more intriguing full lengths I’ve heard for some time. As firmly grounded in it’s electronic roots as the sparse flash of musical brilliance, the moniker Sound Team is quite aptly chosen, conveying as they do, in simple terms: sound, and little else.

Pass the first impressions off and that’s sadly where this album begins to creak a little and raise some doubts, there’s no questioning the ability the collective have and some of the songs are just pure quality stuff, but the depth on offer does leave a little to be desired. The mix up between indie and simple electronica is quite nice overall, though the repetitive beats are not salvaged by any sudden burst of spontaneous sound or even the slightest hint of a complex arrangement to add to the mix; it does seem as though they settled for a lazy beat and carried out the rest as if a chore, the vocal delivery reflects this at times.

For all this, the greatest down fall of the album is not in its being bad, because overall it really isn’t; the mediocrity is the biggest letdown this band have imposed on themselves. With just 43 minutes on offer across 11 songs, it should be straightforward to listen straight through to this, but the songs are too slow to offer an sudden bursts and grabs at attention, definitely a slow burner rather than a hard hitter.

But the first impressions could’ve spelt so much more; the opener, painfully short ‘Get Out’ really pulls things off to a good start, though masking the disappointed for the following songs; which early on may leave you questioning exactly where this is going. ‘Born to Please’ chimes in with a nice enough sounding intro, yet quickly becomes an invariable drawl. It takes title track ‘Movie Monster’ to finally offer some hope, sounding a lot like something you’d find on a Postal Service album; it maintains a nice tempo and draws you in slowly, nice then that ‘TV Torso’ comes in at just the right time and adds a bit of a chilled house vibe onto proceedings, finally the band are awakening.

‘Back in Town’ borrows the repetitive tag but is just sweet enough to pull it off rather painlessly. ‘You’ve Never Lived a Day’ is the next song of note, and mainly only because of the nice guitar tracks running underneath, there just isn’t enough variety here to really get you hooked. The songs take too long to really start having an effect, introductions are a little too over indulgent, rhythms are a little too repetitive, vocals really are a little subdued, everything just doesn’t really click. Slightly disappointing as I had such high hopes following the first track.