ARTIST: Mates of State
TITLE: Re-Arrange Us
LABEL: Barsuk
GENRE: Indie
BITRATE: 196kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 35m total
RELEASE DATE: 2008-05-20
RIP DATE: 2008-05-19
Track List
----------
1. Get Better 3:27
2. Now 2:39
3. My Only Offer 2:58
4. The Re-arranger 4:28
5. Jigsaw 3:14
6. Blue and Gold Print 4:22
7. Help Help 3:44
8. You Are Free 3:19
9. Great Dane 3:04
10. Lullaby Haze 4:25
Release Notes:
Considering the sort of cute overload your typical husband/wife music duo
induces, Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel have done a commendable job establishing
Mates of State as an original, inventive band rather than indie pop's equivalent
of a lolcat. While their mid-concert kissy faces and ubiquitous canoodling press
shots would seem to depict their music strictly as a product of love's labors,
the duo's most intriguing draw stems from their ingenuity, consistently setting
off creative lightbulbs album-after-album despite a limiting drums/keys palette.
Of course, that's not to say the couple is impervious to the Sonny & Cher
effect. With two newly-minted babies in two years, Gardner and Hammel must feel
a rite of passage into parenthood is due, as Re-Arrange Us thoroughly
redecorates the standard Mates of State sound.
In Re-Arrange Us, these increasingly domesticated Mates have basically made an
album to cook dinner and do the dishes to. Considering recent signs like their
adorable naked PETA photo shoot, extensive blog chronicling of their daughters,
and nascent experimentation with string arrangements on 2006's Bring It Back,
the move to a gooey MOR aesthetic shouldn't be so surprising. The real shocker
is how Gardner switches to piano after years on her trusty 1970s Electone organ,
an instrument that served as her Excalibur, Mjolnir, and "Wonder Boy" bat all
rolled into one. With his wife's sparkling arpeggios and carnival pump organ on
the shelf, Hammel has no choice but to sound equally tame behind the skins,
causing these songs to gently build rather than jerk the listener through one
ADD idea after another.
The move is especially dangerous considering how the duo's runaway-mine-car
frenzy was the principal repellent of emo accusations in the past. Re-Arrange
Us, bogged down in fluffy multi-instrumental arrangements and overdubbed
harmonies, can't help but slow things down and do some soul searching, sometimes
to a stomach-wrenching degree. While most of the tracks here don't surpass Bring
It Back's lengthier durations, the added emotional and textural heft sure makes
them seem longer. "Now", for example, softens the signature arpeggio from 2006
single "For the Actor" into the kind of celestial (for lack of better word)
balladeering a band like Stars pulls off more effectively. Even the broken
record chorus of repeated "Now!"'s sounds oddly tranquil as both singers fly
below their usual high-register yelp. Other potential dramatic peaks are
similarly botched on "Blue and Gold Print" or "You Are Free", two rose-tinted
lullabies hamstrung by sluggish melodies and too many held notes posing as
hooks.
For those fearing the duo has jumped the shark here, history shows this could
just be a brief stumble. Our Constant Concern from 2002 suffered from similar
ailments as this album's (e.g., uninteresting harmonies, conservative
songwriting, pedestrian tempos), and the band bounced back with 2003's Team Boo,
their most white-knuckled album to date. Throwbacks like "The Re-Arranger" and
"Help Help" prove the Mates still possess a mischievous pop streak, especially
when belting scattershot melodies over each other. Unfortunately there aren't a
lot of opportunities to get caught in that lovely crossfire on Re-Arrange Us, a
record that, for all its lush bells and whistles, finds the pair sounding as
bare-boned and sparse as you'd expect a two-person band to be.