I’ve been bored. God, I’ve been bored. I honestly cannot remember the last time I stepped into a record shop to partake in my once-favourite pastime of browsing through everything and anything for that inevitable gem that does not yet adorn my record collection. I’ve been drowning in a sea of Keanes, Kasabians and Killers (don’t ask me who sings what, I don’t know), and thoroughly lamenting the lack of imagination in music. The fearlessness was gone.
But last week, as the new decade emerged, I crossed the picket line and stepped into HMV. No it wasn’t a new years resolution, instead I was looking for the intriguing sounds of the Local Natives whose ad had interrupted my Waylon Jennings album on Spotify that morning (yes, in an attempt to keep my faith in music I had gone back, way back).
Gorrilla Manor, released last year, is a raucous and raw album with stark melodies and rich harmonies. That may seem like an oxymoron, but there is no better way to describe it. It’s like caring without caring. It’s the disheveled look of the indie kid that says ‘I don’t care’ but you just know that every hair has been meticulously placed. The Local Natives pitch a fearless experimentation with sound against complex harmonies and rhythms that hit you right in the solar plexus.
There was an underground music scene happening in America in 2007, featuring the folksy, unrefined and daring sounds of Man Man, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and TV on the Radio. It would appear that these influences have now bubbled to the surface, perhaps osmosifying with the rich harmonies and clever instrumentation of bands like the Decemberists along the way. The result is the Local Natives and their peers such as Fleet Foxes and more recently The Temper Trap. And it’s refreshing.
The track that interrupted my Waylon Jennings moment was Airplanes, a yearning love song that appears to be written to a dead mother. The simple chorus repeats ‘I want you back’ with a heartbreaking honesty accompanied by trembling drums. It is almost haunting, which is a mood the Local Natives know how to master. No more so than on the track Shape Shifter which opens with unearthly, spine-tingling vocals and drums.
In fact, it is the drums that make this album original. There is not a snare-on-two-and-four in sight, but a much more tribal set of rhythms which give Gorilla Manor density. That, coupled with an abundance of vocal harmonies turns very ordinary images (the lane next over is always faster/but right after you complete your merge the lane you started in is going), into beautiful ones.
The cover of Talking Heads’ Warning Sign is given the real Local Natives treatment with piercing, ghostly harmonies and raw energy, while still retaining the nonchalance of the original track in the verses. It is testament to their original sound that the Local Natives can handle such a cover deftly and with imagination.
All in all it was a real gem to find in the cold, dark days of a daunting January. And with that I say goodbye to the noughties and here’s to music growing up in the teens.
