One thing I can say for Chris Robley (aside from the fact that he has created the longest album title I can recall since Fiona Apple's When the yada yada yada) is that you won't hear too many albums like his. Movie Theater Haiku begins with a track that is reminiscent of Murder By Death. It features a healthy dose of strings and a rich, sort of literary feel to it.

In fact, the entire album has a literary feel to it. Just look at the song titles such as "The Late, Great Age of paper (haiku #2)" and "Baltimore Fugitives Buried in Brownsville, TX." They kind of sound like story titles, don't they. Robley is not interested in making 3-minute verse-chorus-verse songs. Each one of his songs feels more like a short story put to a fairly complex arrangement. That being said, Robley is not above using a kazoo ("Solipsist in Love"), which is probably the least literary-sounding instrument available.

Robley not only shows skill as a multi-instrumentalist. He has created an album in which the style of music varies from one song to the next. There is a definite darkness in some of the tunes ("A Memory Lost at Sea" and "Glass Reich") while "The User-Friendly Guide to Change" is an upbeat song with a cool horn part.