- Release Info -------------------------------------------------------------- -
Artist: Hermit Thrushes
Album: Slight Fountain
Label: Joyful Noise Records
Playtime: 29:53 min
Genre: Indie
URL: http://www.myspace.com/hermitthrushes
Rip date: 2009-07-01
Street date: 2009-06-23
Size: 40.00 MB
Type: Normal
Quality: 175 kbps / 4410kHz / Joint Stereo
- Release Notes ------------------------------------------------------------- -
Slight Fountain occupies a dubious middle ground. ItÆs a pop album that leans
heavily on the kind of queasy, off-kilter melodies and unpredictable chord
progressions championed by David Longstreth of Dirty Projectors, but it
arranges those elements into a collection of songs infinitely more accessible
than anything off The Getty Address or Rise Above. While I have a lot of
respect for Longstreth and the madman stuff he does with melody, the group
doesnÆt ù at the risk of unironically echoing Stephen Colbert ù speak to my
gut. In a way, the (comparatively) straightforward nature of
singer/songwriter Yianni KourmadasÆs compositions exacerbates my feeling of
disconnection with his take on DPÆs aesthetic. He, in essence, appropriates a
style of music I already find emotionally alienating and further strips away
much of its headiness and complexity. He does what Longstreth does, only not
quite as well.
This is not to say that there arenÆt interesting things happening from song
to song. Take ôSnowflake Heartö as an example. It opens with the halting
thump of the bass drum, pounding in time with an awkward progression of
acoustic guitar chords and a staccato vocal harmony in falsetto. Then, all
the backing elements drop away at the verse, leaving Kourmadas to sing over a
bare-bones guitar accompaniment. Following the chorus, the guitar is joined
by the bass and drum, with the addition of a ringing trumpet. ItÆs as pure an
example of Hermit ThrushÆs ambitious song dynamics as I could hope to find.
Unfortunately, the pleasures gained from such excursions feel largely
academic. This is due, in no small part, to KourmadasÆs total non-presence as
a singer. He offers a breathy, muttered vocal performance reminiscent of
Mount EerieÆs Phil Elverum, if Elverum didnÆt really give a shit about what
he was singing. The lyrics themselves donÆt do much to help the situation. On
the page, they read like especially cryptic haiku. Yet for all of their
mysteriousness, the songs conjure little in the way of evocative or memorable
imagery.
For as many risks as Hermit Thrushes take, I canÆt help but walk away from
Slight Fountain thinking that IÆve heard it before. Maybe the band would be
better off exploring more conventional melodies. The most vital-sounding and
memorable track on the album for me is ôCeci,ö a song that relies less on
peculiar sounds or jarring melodic shifts and more on instrumental interplay
and subtle changes in tempo. It sounds almost like a late-90s Built to Spill
composition condensed to its most essential elements. This song, at least,
sounds like a song and not merely an intellectual exercise. And if ôCeciö is
less ambitious than the rest of Slight Fountain, consider this: the song is
no more derivative than anything else Hermit Thrushes have to offer this time
around.
- Track List ---------------------------------------------------------------- -
01. An Oil Fruit ( 0:30)
02. Snowflake Heart ( 2:07)
03. Ceci ( 2:17)
04. Push ( 2:39)
05. Golden Wounds ( 2:13)
06. Broken Adze ( 0:56)
07. Song From Boat ( 3:17)
08. Black Cat ( 2:14)
09. Older Trees ( 1:48)
10. Headless ( 2:20)
11. Found House ( 1:57)
12. Gooseneck ( 1:18)
13. Perla ( 1:45)
14. A Good Dream ( 4:32)
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