Albumen - Lake Desolation

Albumen
Lake Desolation

The year is still mighty young, but I’ll go out on a limb and say the new Albumen record is one of the best of its “type” that I’ve listened to this year. “Type” is going to be difficult to pin down accurately, however, for their new album Lake Desolation. The songs are all over the map and underneath it, ranging from fine folk ramblings to disturbing electronic offerings to straightforward rock. Sort of like Earlimart lost somewhere in The Appalachians but with more keyboards.

I’m not gonna lie and say this won’t be a challenging album for many who are used to more straightforward neu-folk like Iron and Wine. This is folk that is RIPPED completely open. Often bathed in deep-well reverb and loads of strange blips and beeps, the songs refuse to sit still and play nice. I think this is why I dug the album so much.

Casual alternative listeners may be content to say that the singing often sounds remarkably like Michael Stipe with less of the whine (and more of the hair). However, for indie folks more in-the-know, let’s go with an initial impression of Bill Callahan (Smog) and David Berman (Silver Jews) with just the barest, barest inkling of Calvin Johnston’s (Beat Happening) bassoon-like mutterings at times.

Many of the songs are dynamic, containing quieter porch folk and that leads to forceful overdriven choruses and endings. “Circle Down” is a good example of that double-sided nature. “Silent Sunrise” is one of my favorite tracks on the album, a midtempo rocker with really infectious chords and melodies.

“Mouthful of Pennies” takes the initial drum riff from The Pixies’ “La La Love You” and proceeds to explode voraciously into an angry Neil Young slash Yo La Tengo punky dronefest. “17,000 x 0″ is weird Apple computer generated vocals mixed with a strange bluesy beat. “Delgado” certainly does sound like something off of New Adventures in Hi-Fi. The echo-laden drum machine feast “Bad Arm & Bowie Knife” is SO strange I can’t really describe it. “Raven Black” sounds like a Magnetic Fields song gone wrong.

Then comes the 9 minute epic “Dark, Dark Country” which contrasts really strangely with all the previous electronica, being a straight 3 chord classic garage rocker that eventually converts itself into a more introspective shoegazey mood piece before blowing off the back doors again at the end. Lovely dovely.

Interestingly, Andrew Churchman of Pants Yell! (one of our all-time favorite Boston indie bands) fame plays drums on a few tracks. Though I think they’ve gotten a full time drummer now (according to the site the band is a trio of Andrew, Paul and Mike).

You can visit the Albumen website for more info on the band.

by Tyranosaur