• Artist website: www.spiraling.net
• Listen at: www.myspace.com/spiraling
• Available on: Amazon MP3, eMusic

Spiraling is a three (or maybe four, depending on your source) piece band out of New Brunswick, New Jersey. Time Travel Made Easy is, I’m pretty sure, the fifth full-length album from this band, which I find pretty unbelievable. This band should have broken out a long time ago.

Disillusionment never sounded so good. Or got stuck in your head so long. Time Travel Made Easy starts off with “The Future” as in, “this is not the future we were promised,” a refrain that sets the tone for the rest of the album (and one I’ve been humming for days). Spiraling’s sound is 80s-inspired power-pop embroidered with beautifully constructed keyboard pieces played by lead singer Tom Brislin. The lyrical tone is defiantly bitter without being at all self-pitying, a fine line to walk that the band achieves by flavoring the darkest songs with soaring musical arrangements. Time Travel Made Easy shows remarkable range, embracing electronic influences on “Victory Kiss” and “Choices,” flamenco on “Enemy,” and Brit-pop on “Time Machine.” Despite channeling a wide set of backgrounds and influences the album remains cohesive, an effect achieved largely in the lyrics and Brislin’s stunning delivery. The effect lands Spiraling somewhere in between The Fray and Jack’s Mannequin.

Standout tracks are “The Future,” “Are You Here” and “Enemy.”