Twelve Rooms, the new album by Palaxy Tracks, has held my interest for over a month now; at first I really liked it, then I renounced it because the singer never once raised his voice during the whole album and that shit always makes me crazy suspicious, then I had no idea what I thought about it. It's roomily produced in the airy-cymbals thudding-kickdrum Chicago style, which is a sound that's practically shorthand for a number of aesthetic positions toward & by which I feel both drawn and repulsed to about exactly the same degree, and it's very atmospheric, which always makes it hard for me to pay attention to things. It violates one of my most basic "avoid that rhyme" rules - that is, it falls victim to the "in your head/words I said" heresy, which, I'll grant, is still better than "in my/your/our bed," which makes me straight-up hurl. Still: someone here has got a vision, and this is a pretty interesting album. It seems flawed to me, which is a word I hate to use because it's so condescending, but it has moments of real grandeur, and it doesn't resort to the quasi-spiritual schtick that most people reach for when they're looking for grandeur lately, for which I gotta say "bravo." Seek it out.