Artist: Naked And Famous, The
Label: Fiction Records
Release: 2013
Length: 55:29
Rating: 4.2/5
The year was 2010, and in a flood of new releases, fresh sounds and proof of life, creativity and inspiration started creeping over the airwaves from the land of the Maori. The creators of a new pop form that didn’t want to stay stuck at feather-light pop and sugary sweetness picked a provocative name that said everything and nothing – The Naked And Famous – and the Auckland five-piece immediately earned comparisons to the then-hot progressive pop attraction MGMT. Young blood cools fast, and in an ocean of one-hit wonders, marvels with just a single tune, the final verdict on the band’s creativity and staying power had to be pushed into the future, to see how the story would unfold. After the album Passive Me, Agressive You, the band of sonic nudists hungry for fame decided to carry on with their dreamy emotional sweetness, but stirred in a bit more electro darkness and a vocal back-and-forth of direct, gender-split vocals on a layered wash of what alternative could be. On this album you’ll hear glimpses of Bjork, Nine Inch Nails and Paramore, mature, pragmatic alt-minimalism, and the band’s flashy, excessive descent into the subconscious has enough sensuality, taste, juicy ideas and freshness to make In Rolling Waves a record that’s packed with action and lovely surprises.
The Reznor-edged opener A Stillness kicks the record off with a more electro-industrial undertone, while the charming young exotic keyboardist Alisa Xayalith softens the form with her sweet, ethereal vocals, and Thom Powers steers it toward different, shinier goals than MGMT’s. For its meaty opening, the song picks the themes of psychoanalysis, rekindled sparks of love, and the longing for stability, safety and peace, and then weaves into the whole a hint of disappointment, hopelessness and cold, which, over a gorgeous mix of keys, guitars and gently muffled drums, pushes its way louder and louder to the surface. The Naked And Famous are surgically precise and concise. The heart has to be dissected, opened up and shown to the world. Hearts Like Ours is a gorgeous step up in atmosphere, Alisa’s dominant, sugary vocal gives the song a softer outline, and you can’t really accuse the whole thing of flaws, shortcomings or the shallow reach of well-thought-out pop built on Paramore-style sensuality. The dreaminess this time is quite organic and warm, and the keyboard sounds are more old-school, more alive and in touch with what’s happening. The song Waltz is Powers’ detour toward millennium-era Radiohead, and the electro waltz of tapping, suggestive sonic contours flirts beautifully with the more mature sound of Thom Yorke and company, without copying the bits or the molecular code of the always experiment-friendly Brits. Personally, here I’m more drawn to the sexy shimmer of the young Alisa’s convincing trump cards than to the male soft baritone, and the epicness just keeps rolling on. The more U2-ish Rolling Waves widens the sound palette to sweeping dimensions that feel therapeutic and consoling. The band has sacrificed a ton in this time to plow their own furrow. They moved to the city of countless fallen angels and shattered dreams, untangled sensual and emotional ties with would-be partners, put themselves on altars and sacrificial stones in front of a critical, fed-up crowd, so the record can be followed as a healing cry from a five-piece who, on top of their road to stardom, are also carving out a path to their own recovery, their own survival. It’s an act of growing up, and every part of it spells that out and proves it. The Mess and the song Grow Old point to the dichotomy between the chaotic, youthful junk of the mind and the more balanced, more serene thinking of people who are aging, know it, and willingly, maybe a little bitterly, give themselves over to resonating with the beat of passing time. The Naked And Famous are eclectics who allow themselves to dig through the subconscious in the name of artistry, and their artistic curiosity leads them coherently further and further toward rock. Golden Girl once again recalls Bono, Edge and company, a story of Davids and Goliaths for a new age, while the song I Kill Giants uses the painful loss of Alisa’s mother, who left her in early youth because of cancer, as its release valve. The positivity of rainbow optimism, which sonically overpowers the sad verses, spreads the band’s field of shockwaves from beat to beat and from song to song. Personally, more than the pompous repetitiveness of a few hypnotic beats (after more than a dozen listens you can pick out the contours of difference in a sea of sameness), I’m drawn to the organic quality of the sturdier songwriting the quintet knows how to deliver and can pull off in songs like What We Want, To Move With Purpose, or the perfect, fragile acoustic closing gem of the record, the song A Small Reunion, where a sensual string quartet joins the band. With that, the whole is wrapped up, and the options for the next deep dive into fine, sparkling waves of sound are even more endless than three years ago.
Maybe In Rolling Waves is more of an impression, one where you can feel a lot of potential still unexpressed, but you have to admit that the ideas that radiated up to the surface of this emotionally rich etching are more refined and made for meditative repetition, for chewing over again and recapping, because the concept is broader and more complex than the sketches you may have been used to in the past, the kind where a single listen was enough for the album, the song and the artist to slip into your heart for good. The Naked In Famous are perfectionists here, who even perform their soul striptease in an artistic way, in the manner of a body-and-spirit fusion of the perfect gesture, one that paints a mood rather than just flashing wretched patches of already-seen skin. For that reason the nakedness this time is merely a symbolic canvas on which, I believe, many more beautiful images, dreaminess and pain will be pressed, while the road to fame for the Auckland five-piece, with a soulful helmsman in the name of art and truth, stays in the background. It’s a musical act that promises more than a few minutes of relaxation, and all we can do is welcome it, heartily and sincerely, with a standing ovation, and look forward to the next sonic turn in advance.
Lineup
Aaron Short – keyboards
Alisa Xayalith – vocals, keyboards
Thom Powers – vocals, guitars
David Beadle – bass
Jesse Wood – drums
Guest musicians:
Calder Quartet: Benjamin Jacobson (violin), Andrew Bulbrook (violin), Jonathan Moerschel (viola), Eric Byers (cello)
Production
Thom Powers, Aaron Short, Justin Meldal-Johnsen
Tracklist
1. A Stillness
2. Hearts Like Ours
3. Waltz
4. Rolling Waves
5. The Mess
6. Grow Old
7. Golden Girl
8. I Kill Giants
9. What We Want
10. We Are Leaving
11. To Move Without Purpose
12. A Small Reunion
