The songs on Tiger Saw's second full-length are primarily snoozy, patience-testing things -- sparse indie-pop reduced to a slithering crawl. You might leap to compare Gimme Danger with the Radar Brothers' glacial slow-core or Low's brooding majesty (as others have), but the most obvious non-musical comparison is the muggy, saggy-eyed feeling that comes with being stuck in gridlocked traffic, yearning desperately for some motion.

The album does have redeeming qualities. The neat arrangements cast Dylan Metrano's achingly lyrical guitar laments against beauteous washes of cello, organ, piano, glockenspiel, banjo, lap steel and toy piano. The minimalistic songwriting also sparkles on the mournfully lucid opener "R U Courageous?" (with the painfully ironic lyric, "I want action and excitement"), and the ice-flow shiver of "I Am So Cold". There's even some kindly assistance from (friend, tour-mate and quite possibly mentor) Jason Anderson of Wolf Colonel (the disc's finale is a sluggishly arresting cover of his "The Goodbye"). Juliet Nelson, whose warm vocal cadences lend the disc its all-too-fleeting air of doleful sophistication, also deserves special mention.

Gimme Danger, Gimme Sweetness is fine in small doses, but as a complete listen (let alone repeat listens) it's an arduous haul, mired in a one-dimensional nether-bog. The achingly repetitious pace, combined with an overall lack of drama, urgency or variation, create a tone of unflinching lethargy. "Burning", "West Of The Sun" and "Eleven O'Clock (Always Comes)" are some of the most inert offenders -- static, comatose masses of moping slug-core that often feel like being trapped in a stuffy, lungless waiting room. Fans of droopy, head-in-hands indie-rock may find plenty to savour in these melancholy laments, but to these ears, Gimme Danger is an aural sedative.