The Age of Rockets are a small name indie band that I fortuitously stumbled upon in a search for something else several years ago. More accurately, I was looking for something entirely different and they opened. (It was an mc chris show. The Age of Rockets don't really have much musical similarity with the nerdcore rapper who hates being called nerdcore even though that's exactly what he is, but one of their songs, "Elephant & Castle" gets sampled on mc chris's "Reese." Still, it wound up being one of the best openers I've seen outside of the Starlight Mints. EDIT: Just learned that Age of Rockets band leader Andrew Futral produced a few mc chris albums, which is probably why he was picked to open for the funny-voiced rapper.)
Hannah is their second album and shows a rather advanced sound for a small time band with little else striking beforehand. With an orchestral, synth-based sound, it's not hard to draw comparisons to the Postal Service. "Fearsome Though We Are," with its heavy synthesizer and it's chill drum machine mix well with singer Andrew Futral's quiet, breathy vocals to sound like a slowed Postal Service song. The comparisons are surface level only though. The song is immediately followed by "1001 Dirty Tricks to Kill Your King," which loses most of the signature synth sounds or drum machines and focuses more on the orchestral side of things, instead featuring prominent violins, cellos, and soothing harmonies.
The album is also less pop-based like a Postal Service album tends to be. Of the eleven tracks, only one or two are even really "head bobbing." The aforementioned "Elephant & Castle" has a driving drum line and heavy synthesizer presence, but feels more like a slow-dance song while "Ship to Shore" is the only truly toe-tapping tune, and even then it takes time to build into it, quickly shedding that pop sound before building once more for the finale. The same holds true of the nerdily titled "Avada Kedavre," which slowly builds to the prettiest song on the album, with its quiet, subdued synths and topsy-turvey contradictory lyrics before erupting into the closest thing to a "dance song" on the album.
Futral tends to play around with song structure, staying away from typical musical patterns, instead playing with crescendos and diminuendos, giving new life to each different song. In many ways, Hannah winds up with a very cinematic feel to it. The album is also very nicely wrapped up with "Stitches to Show Something's Missing," a song that is very similar to the first track, "What Story Down There Awaits Its End?" Musically, it takes on a similar life to the first track. By the end of the song, lyrics are lifted from other songs in the album, giving it a connection to the overall work and a nice sense of closure, culminating in an almost exhausting build up to the finale. (It's almost M83-like.)
It's an ambitious and unique album in an indie world increasingly dancy with its use of synths, making it a welcome change of pace. Hannah is one of the rare gems I've uncovered in my years of attending shows and suffering through unpleasant opening acts.
No comments:
Post a Comment