The Portland trio that comprises {$Menomena} calls its first album {$I Am the Fun Blame Monster!}, which is an anagram for "the first {$Menomena} album." That kind of joke is typical of a band that packages the disc in a flipbook showing them performing on drums, bass, and piano and that reveals in their press materials that the album was largely produced with a self-written computer program, after which they learned to play its songs live. Cut through all this traffic, and the music itself is still laden with primitive effects. {$Menomena} loves to have its vocals filtered through a nearly impenetrable screen of noise, loves to begin a musical figure on keyboards or guitar, repeat it over and over, then suddenly cut it off and move on to something else. The piano/bass/drum combination sometimes recalls {$Ben Folds Five}, but the melodies and lyrics are never given much of a chance to develop, or even be heard for long in the self-conscious gimmickry of the deliberately harsh production. {$Menomena} clearly thinks of itself as a clever bunch of musicians. Maybe next time around they'll be more interested in sharing their wit with their listeners rather than just alluding to it. For a debut album, {$I Am the Fun Blame Monster!} is surprisingly sophomoric. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide