The Vestals – The Vestals

This Minnesota group combines a hazy guitar drone suggesting ’80s Kiwi-rock (a la The Clean, Bailter Space) with the anthemic scope of Midwestern rock. Sounds great in theory. Unfortunately, brothers Jeremy and Ben Gordon’s melodies are vague and blurry, rarely sharp enough to burrow very deeply into your mind. The result: an album that’s never less than interesting, and never (barring certain near-exceptions, like “Childhood Timeouts”) more than mildly memorable.