Pretty Girls Make Graves have made incremental steps up the rock stardom ladder, from their acclaimed first album "Good Health" off the independent punk label Lookout! Records to "The New Romance" on the mid-major label Matador.
Their latest release, "Elan Vital," sees them moving on from indie-legend producer Phil Eks (The Shins) to Colin Stewart, who has produced heavier-sounding acts like Black Mountain and Destroyer, but is more known for live albums by Fugazi and The Walkmen. Unfortunately, PGMG's decision to go with Stewart is a distracting mistake.
The move isn't a sell-out to radio. In fact, it results in an album that sounds more "live" and stripped than their previous, production-heavy works. The idea behind the transition was probably to take advantage of PGMG's reputation as a killer live band, but the mix sounds incredibly amateur and unfinished. As a result, the album exposes every single flaw in an otherwise great band.
PGMG fans should think of this album as a step sideways - "Elan Vital" maintains the band's status as innovative and eclectic leaders of the indie scene, but it's a highly ambitious - and flawed - holding pattern.
While the best bands are always evolving, PGMG tend to change too much to evolve. Take the initial tracks of "Vital." The opening track, "Nocturnal House," is a prog-punk Mars Volta song tricked out with echoes, whistles and odd time signatures. It also rocks.
Track two, "Pyrite Pedestal," is a Rhodes piano-driven indie-pop symphony that sweeps like the Smashing Pumpkins' "Tonight, Tonight." The third track, "The Number," is a garage rock dancer full of tambourine and horns. Track four, "Parade," is a show tune call to "throw-down pushbrooms" with the most spirited pop vocals ever on a PGMG track, but the poorly mixed vocals make it sound like it was recorded in a garage.
All four opening songs are good, but they're also songs that would fit on four different albums from four different bands. Further tracks recall other PGMG influences, like Sonic Youth on "Domino" and The Specials in "Selling the Wind." Varied influence is nothing new from PGMG, but it makes for a strange listening experience.
The songs prove the band is superior scholars in rock music, but a listener begins to hope for a thesis statement that never comes. The band is solid musically, and they create walls of sound few modern acts, save maybe The Arcade Fire, can match. Their ambition, however, extends just beyond their reach, and a few songs catch the band unprepared for some of their experiments, like on album closer "Bullet Charm."
That being said, the songs themselves are extremely well crafted, and layers and layers of instruments give the impression of a massive sound. Unfortunately, as already mentioned, the production is noticeably left behind.
Almost every song seems to have at least one layer that was draped in with the rest of the piece like an afterthought, and it always seems to be a crucial piece that was left hanging: "The Number" might have been built with an interesting keys part, but it dances solo rather than with it's partner, the rest of the song. "Parade" shines a spotlight into every single crack or thin spot in lead singer Andrea Zollo's voice. "The Magic Hour" features a guitar lick that jumps out with a "look at me!" over Zollo's lyrics, rather than the rhythmic accent they are.
It's an unfortunate fate for a seriously deep set of songs - the band comes to Buffalo on April 9, and I feel I have to go to the show to hear the songs in their natural state, far from the hack job that robbed them of their strength.
