I was out for a jog the other day, and as usual, I didn't have music on. Maybe I'm alone in this regard, but I can't concentrate on music while exercising, so I developed the habit of listening to podcasts. For some reason I can concentrate on human speech while jogging--in fact, it takes me out of the physicality of exercise so I'm not always thinking "I'm tired, I'm sore, how much longer??" I don't remember what exact podcast or topic within said podcast spurred the thought, but I started to think about how very few artists these days manage to create equally brilliant second and third albums. Is this a process of the Internet-age hype machine burning out bands before their time or are we, as consumers, more apt to get bored with something and move on because of the acceleration of culture?? Or is it just the age old "you have forever to make your first album, and very few bands can create something equally good and interesting on the next try"?? This isn't a completely original idea, I realize, but I want to take it a step further: is it the bands who let us down with their subsequent albums or are we too critical of albums that are too different or too similar to the first, and thus unable to follow a band's career and grow naturally with them??This may be a sign of my own increasing cynicism and critical-ness, but, myopically, so far 2008 has been a mixed bag for music. We've had some good albums, true, but new releases by a few of my favorite artists have been disappointing--specifically, Islands, Silver Jews, and Destroyer. None of those albums are the 'second' album by each band, but they all felt like let downs because they were either too different or too similar to what had come before. At the very least, I can't imagine anyone arguing that that these albums are the best thing each band has done. This holds true for other second albums/subsequent albums I've been listening to lately: Evil Urges by My Morning Jacket, Walk It Off by Tapes 'N Tapes, Cease To Begin by Band of Horses, and Some Loud Thunder by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Some of these came as let downs, but even the ones I like I would never posit as better than their forebearers.
This whole concept of "following up hugely successful albums" has plagued bands for decades, but it's also been something many, many other critics have picked at in regards to their reviews. On one hand, I want to recommend Some Loud Thunder because it's a good album with interesting songs that grow on you. On the other hand, most people aren't obsessive music collectors like me, and will only want the best album by a band, so I have to sit here and say "well, it's not as good as their debut..." I think Destroyer's recent Trouble In Dreams is an inferior, samey follow-up to Destroyer's Rubies, but if a fan came to that album first, would it seem so weak?? Half of music reviewing and criticism should be supporting and explaining albums that other people might not know or understand, but the other half should also be a consumer guide that goes beyond personal opinion.
At least, in theory.
See, an album like At Mount Zoomer throws a wrench into my plans, because while I absolutely adore Apologies to the Queen Mary, the band's debut, I am genuinely torn between the two. At Mount Zoomer sounds like the same band--the same omnipresent keyboards and crunchy guitars, driving/taut percussion, and the affected, impassioned vocals of Dan Broeckner and Spencer Krug--but it has entirely different aims. Where Apologies to the Queen Mary was a masterpiece of relatively concise songwriting and a modern day indie rock touchstone, At Mount Zoomer is a more nuanced, complex, and expansive album. It feels and sounds like a travel album, painting portraits of places and scenes while motion is maintained. If you've ever driven by people arguing and started to write their story in your head, or had a quick series of dreams about imaginary romances while afternoon napping, you have a good idea of the kind of things this album shows to you lyrically. It's not entirely removed from the first album, but it doesn't have the same goosebump inducing poetics that Queen Mary does. Instead, Zoomer's goosebumps come from a combination of word sounds and the music itself.
The big difference, musically, between At Mount Zoomer and Apologies to the Queen Mary is that the songs are longer and more instrumentally focused. This isn't to say that it's a guitar solo heavy, jamming album ala Stephen Malkmus's Real Emotional Trash or a prog rock influenced workout like, err, basically every Fiery Furnaces's album except their first. No, what this album does is allow the songs to breathe when they need to. Apologies to the Queen Mary is an intense, upfront album that rarely stops long enough to let you exhale. On Zoomer, if a song doesn't always need percussion, guitars, and keyboards piled on top of each other, it doesn't have it. If it needs a delicate moment (or three) of only one or two elements of sound going, it gets it, such as the halfway mark of the superb 'An Animal In Your Care', wherein everything dies away and the song enters its catchier second half, building from a simple keyboard melody to a majestic climax. Moreover, if a song needs the instruments to carry the emotional weight of a song, they do. Epic album closer 'Kissing The Beehive' puts faith in the listener to hang on through the instrumental sections because the melodic concepts and ideas they sail upon will pay dividends when the vocals come back in. Think Let It Be by the Beatles, not in a "back to basics, classic classic rock" kind of way, but in the way that, say, the full band is playing together and playing off of each other in the intro to 'Dig A Pony.' This song is also worthy of praise for being the first time it truly becomes apparent how sympathetic Boeckner and Krug are as vocal foils.
Speaking of which: At Mount Zoomer is a significant step forward for Boeckner as a singer and a songwriter. Though I confess to not having heard his Handsome Furs side project, I have always considered myself more of a Krug kind of guy, since I thought he had the better batch of songs on Apologies. Here, however, Boeckner's work is just as good--if not potentially better--than Krug's, in particular 'The Grey Estates', with its circular, merry-go-round feel and intricate lyrics. Of course I would be remiss if I didn't mention 'Fine Young Cannibals', presumably named after that band because of the falsetto vocals Boeckner employs. I also like the strange, barely-there saxophone solo that ends the song. Perhaps, then, a minor difference between the two albums is that Krug had a higher batting average on the debut while Boeckner does on the sophomore release.
At Mount Zoomer sits in a weird place because it's not likely to win over anyone, and those that Wolf Parade already had are apt to either love it, as I do, or feel like it's a let down. Moreover, you're likely to meet people who like Wolf Parade but not Sunset Rubdown; people who like Handsome Furs but not Wolf Parade; people who like Sunset Rubdown but not Wolf Parade; people who like At Mount Zoomer but not Apologies to the Queen Mary and so on. Taste, as a subjective force, is such a strange thing. I want to be able to play the consumer guide and end this review by saying that At Mount Zoomer is better or worse than Apologies to the Queen Mary, yet the more I listen to it, the more I can't choose. Let me try to sum all of this up, then. At Mount Zoomer is not the place fans should start, but I feel it has enough of its own life and character that fans will be richly rewarded for giving it a try. In short: equally as good, but for different reasons.
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