Saturday Looks Good To Me Fill Up The Room by: Ed Butler Tue:04-Dec-07 Label: K Year: 2007 WB rating 80 out of 100

Usually, when an album is referred to as a ‘grower’, the word brings to mind intense, dramatic, even epic music, where experimental twitches and idiosyncrasies abound, the point being that these unusual quirks would require time to ‘grow’ on the listener. Bands like Mogwai, Radiohead, The Mars Volta and Björk spring to mind, bands that have routinely challenged fans’ preconceptions and prejudices, pushed envelopes and produced albums which have often been labeled as ‘unlistenable’ at first try, before gradually gaining if not universal, then fairly widespread acclaim.

Does that mean that an album of slightly quirky, yet lightweight indie pop can’t qualify as a ‘grower’? According to longtime indie stalwarts Saturday Looks Good to Me, the answer is no. Fill Up The Room may begin by sounding disposable and ephemeral, but it most certainly is not. It may not wind up on any 'best-of' lists, but rest assured it will remain on high rotation on many home stereos and iPods for some time. It isn't epic or portentous, but it burrows deep inside your head.

Mining the rich vein of indie pop first exploited by Teenage Fanclub and Matthew Sweet in the early 90s, Saturday Looks Good to Me have created a low-fi, under-produced sound which serves to highlight the band's many foibles while simultaneously managing to make them feel charming and idiosyncratic.  At first blush, the harmonies on '(even if you die on the) Ocean', sound slightly off-key, jarring, amateurish, but given a few listens, suddenly they're quaint, appealing. The attempt at vocal gymnastics from Fred Thomas (formerly of His Name Is Alive, Lovesick and Flashpapr) and band is forgivable, as they are at numerous other points across the ensuing 40 minutes. After all, pop's appeal hardly lies in its perfections, but in its prettiness. It's why Marilyn Monroe's mole was considered a bonus: imperfections serve to enhance beauty, not diminish it.

Fill Up The Room is undeniably pretty. Not like Justin Timerlake's music is pretty; it isn't. That's not his job. He's bringing sexy back. FutureSex/LoveSounds is the girl you take home at 3am because she looks hot in the half-light of the pub at closing. Fill Up The Room is the one you marry, after not really finding her all that much the first time you meet her. It's not until the ninth song, 'Edison Girls', which, incidentally, is the highlight, that it becomes apparent how capable SLGTM are at constructing pop melodies. And as the happy-clappy chorus washes over, gradually the previous eight feel more worthy of a second look.

This time around, off-key harmonies are thoroughly endearing, the stripped-back blues of 'Apple' becomes the gloriously misshapen power-ballad it sounds like it was first written to be, morphing into late-night, closing time singalong. When Thomas strains his voice into the upper register, where he clearly wasn't designed to ascend to, and sings 'I could fill up the room/With these  things I've been thinking about you/It's true', the moral touchstone of Fill Up The Room becomes apparent. Meanwhile simple riffs, such as on 'Money in the Afterlife' become the source of much toe-tapping, rather than finger drumming. On first listen, 'Make A Plan's reverb-soaked guitar tends to override the cute chorus, and it's on the second or third run through that the brief burst of Springsteen-style piano is noticed, tying it all together and bringing substance.

On Fill Up The Room, Saturday Looks Good to Me have taken the traditional lightweight indie-pop aesthetic and fleshed it out, giving it substance. Perhaps not to the extent that The Shins have done in the past, but then, Chutes Too Narrow was a stone cold classic. This is certainly no disposable, airy piece of fluff. The real joy of Fill Up The Room is the sensation, nagging at the back of your head, along with the guitar melody from 'Edison Girls', that you're going to rediscover this record. Maybe next month, maybe next decade, but at some point, it will find its way back to the stereo and won't have diminished one bit but may actually be enhanced by the wait. New treasures could reveal themselves. Only time will tell.