
Consumer Confidence Vol. 2 returns with a wide array of sounds: layered programmed and sequenced drums, walls of synths, samples, and strings, at times both a departure and yet familiar from Rusty String. This volume presents a much more cohesively crafted set of songs, departing from the random compilation of the previous release.
Vol. 2 is announced by the chimerical cacophony of "First Act", thickly layered with sawtoothed synthesizers in a dark, upbeat frenzy. The mood shifts into the more concentrated and intense drumming of "Every Little Movement", punctuated by layers of samba drumming and static. The veil of intensity lifts to reveal the softer, more introspective melody of "Stand Still Like The Hummingbird", driven by softly plucked guitar, shakers, and a dot matrix printer, to be lifted up high in a sea of drums and clicks.
"Stand Still" is a short pivot point to the cozy world of "Everything in so Long", layered with nostalgia inducing detuned guitars, tamborines, and underwater synthesizers, leading up to a manic ending swathed with cymbal crashes and abused snare drums. The intensity of the drumming segues into the dramatic on edge sea of violas in "My Life as an Echo", which then decay into the epic epilogue of the record: the nine minute strong "Lift Your Hands, but not too high". Hewn with an orchestral approach, "Lift Your Hands" creates a beautiful, forlorn-yet-hopeful dream landscape, building up into a decisive intensity that brings the track to a close.
The last two tracks on Vol. 2 include lush remixes Boy In Static of Mush Records, off of his Violet LP, and Telephone Jim Jesus & Bomarr of Anticon, off of their Chapel of The Chimes live improvisation album.