It doesn’t take a golden ear to hear an awful lot of Modest Mouse - sans the guitar fireworks - in the music of Figurines (no definite article, apparently), starting with the tart, thick-tongued vocals and extending all the way to The Pixies’ presence looming large over the music. “All Night,” for instance, could quite easily have been an outtake from the Trompe le Monde sessions, and the beginning of the closing tune on Skeleton, “Release Me on the Floor,” sounds like it’s trying desperately not to play Modest Mouse’s own “Out of Gas” chord for chord.

But any sins of unoriginality committed by this up-and-coming Danish four-piece seem negligible in the face of such an appealing, generally memorable and well-crafted disc, one that’s brimming with the kind of catchy two-minute tunes and clever singalong lyrics that never fail to pack venues in the Portland/Seattle area. “The Wonder,” the album’s first overseas single (Skeleton has been drifting around Europe for nigh on a year and is only now getting its stateside release through The Control Group), is a punchy, rubbery number, and ought to be more than enough to draw listeners’ attention to their rather more substantial indie pop tracks like “Ambush” (musically reminiscent of yet another Pixies-influenced band, namely Spoon circa A Series of Sneaks), the banjo-driven “Ghost Towns,” and “Silver Ponds.” While not sonically groundbreaking, Skeleton is nevertheless a strong North American debut for Figurines, and will likely send plenty of newfound fans in search of their earlier Europe-only releases, Shake a Mountain (2003) and The Detour EP (2001).

(Posted on the Daily Copper.)