AM/FM - The Sky is the New Ground EP
(Polyvinyl)
Here we got the newie from AM/FM, an EP called The Sky is the New Ground. If yer sittin' round the hi-fi with your copies of AM/FM records past, here's a little comparison to help us along and set the stage: gone is the lousy humor that made last year's Getting Into Sinking an awkward eye-roller at times (song titles from that LP: "Virgins! Virgins!," "If We Burned All the Assholes the Earth Would Look Like the Sun"). But more surprising is the fact that jettisoned along with the attempts at haw-haw is the lighthearted songwriting that permeated ...Sinking.
The Sky is the New Ground is a lyrically dark-as-sunglasses pop record; throughout the EP there's a nifty disconnect between form and content, as bright melodies and stunning singing mask the almost uniformly gloomy lyrics. Abandonment is a theme that plays itself out over the record as choirboy voices deliver lines like "You're long gone and I have fear/Please don't be long" ("Mrs. Astronaut") and "You can't compete you see/I'm gone in three" ("Gone In Three"). It's mope with a spring in its instrumental step, suicide with a smile.
What it sounds like: a midtempo introductory instrumental (on a 17-minute EP??) leads into the snappy "Gone In Three," a radio-ready, Elephant 6-style pop song that twists tempo and feel with every sunny guitar run. Gorgeous vocal harmonies—a major AM/FM strength—deliver the song's sad "see you later baby" message and get the big thumbs-up. And here, the boys even show that they know what the kids are into these days as Cornelius-style "1-2-3" electo-vox samples bookend the track—electronic flourishes they call 'em in the biz. Hotcha!
The sadness continues apace with "Mrs. Astronaut," which closes out with an acoustic bit whose sole vocal content is the sniffly apology, "Dear wife I'm sorry to be/Not the man you expected of me." From weeper to keeper: finale "All To Remember" is a flawless orch-pop slowbuilder and, lyrically, the sunniest of the batch ("Save yr life and save yr heart," etc.). A swelling synth backdrop stretches out lazily over the song's seven minutes and is gradually layered with vox/melodica/drums/bass/fuzzed guitar as the minutes and verses tick by. This track is an eye-opener, best displaying AM/FM's growth since the last record; the lush instrumentation is fantastic, pulled off seamlessly.
After the fade, an elegant organ coda sees us out the door, at which point the EP's biggest deficiency becomes apparent. This is by no means a poor release, but just the same it ain't gonna rock any socks: the tempered "wow" that comes while the headphones are on soon turns to "ho-hum" after the record ends. The Sky is the New Ground is a record that simply is; neither a jump-out brain-throttler nor a mixtape masterpiece in the bunch. Still, to its credit, this record flows in a very pleasant, melodic way. Ambitious punchy pop plop stopgap? Fair enough!
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