Architecture - The Speed of Not Being Lost
(Flaccid Rock)
Hmmmmm, where to start with this one? Let's start with the fact that there are a number of quite solid songs on this album; they are played and sung well, they do grow on the listener with repeated listens, and they have some quite poignant moments. Their problem is that they don't manage to quite grab your attention the way they should. The vocals seem overly affected and somewhat pretentious in delivery, and too much attention is paid to working on adding additional elements to the arrangements. What needs to be done is to just work on nailing the basic chord progressions and vocal melodies, and even more so, the emotion in the performance. This is where the core of great songs lie. Especially songs that are not especially innovative (or really trying to be). I would place these guys with Radiohead (another overly pretentious band if there ever was one), but with a more traditional folky/bluesy feel, and maybe a bit of Spoon in there too.
"Cut the Power" is the highlight, with an interesting vocal based middle that adds some nice contrast. "Hand-eye" is a well performed and in places quite beautiful melodic number.
"And So On" has a vocal melody that is quite nice and the song does evolve in an unexpected way, but there is just not enough edge to the performance.
The performances are far too restrained to make the songs shine. So much attention is being paid to getting the songs down on tape while keeping perfect time it seems. You can almost hear the band watching the metronome as the song plays. If they would just do a pure live take where they bust a gut to make you care things would work. It would be interesting to hear the songs live to see how they would sound played with more verve and conviction.
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