Plumbiferous Media

These United States returned last Tues­day with a new album, What Lasts. Right on the 35 minute line between EP and LP, What Lasts is a rel­a­tively short intro­duc­tion to the new devel­op­ments These United States has made to their sound since their last album. Unfor­tu­nately, its short­ness may actu­ally be a boon to the band, as the band really doesn’t sound very good on What Lasts.

Front­man Jesse Elliott pro­vides vocals for yet another These United States album, singing with his famil­iar alt-country influ­enced tones. Unfor­tu­nately, while on the States’ last album (2009’s Every­thing Touches Every­thing) Elliott’s voice gen­er­ally worked quite well - occa­sional clash­ing moments aside - What Lasts seems to dis­play the exact oppo­site approach. Elliott’s stronger tones do appear from time to time, but the major­ity of the album is taken up by the half-groaning, half-spitting-at-the micro­phone tone his voice seems to be reach­ing towards on tracks like opener “Nobody Can Tell.”

And Elliott seems to have taken the same approach to What Lasts’ lyrics. While These United States’ ear­lier work tended to bal­ance, as lyrics go, the gen­uinely inter­est­ing and the mildly generic, What Lasts has replaced inter­est­ing with inane. The album opens with the entirely non­sen­si­cal stanza: “I was recov­ered by two strangers / And a motor / Over­flow­ing mod­ern man from the jaws of the wild waters / Noth­ing yet metaphoric / Sym­bolic or clut­tered / Just my life on their one hand / And my death on their order / Sky drowned in its blue All those sail­boats too per­fect / Painted just to be washed / As I spun from their orbit.” The album fluc­tu­ates between this sort of con­fu­sion and rep­e­ti­tion of generic lines, with occa­sional well-written lines that would have fit well on the States’ ear­lier albums.

As unlikely as it may seem, given the thought­lessly writ­ten lyrics, What Lasts has extremely care­fully con­structed instru­men­tals. These United States uses as many guitar-generated sounds as pos­si­ble, along with the full slew of addi­tional instru­men­ta­tion to cre­ate a richly pop­u­lated and beau­ti­fully recorded sound. The instru­men­tals are sur­pris­ingly deep and intri­cate, and are the best ele­ment on the album by a long shot, but the instru­men­tals’ qual­ity does not gen­er­ally show through to the over­all sound, that extreme level of detail often becom­ing appar­ent only under intense scrutiny.

With some excep­tions, includ­ing the intense “One You Believe” and the rel­a­tively sim­ple, but nonethe­less engag­ing “Life&Death She&I,” the end result of all that work devis­ing and record­ing the instru­men­tals is often a fairly dull, generic fun­da­men­tal sound. The louder, more active tracks fare bet­ter in gen­eral, but that’s more a tem­po­rary fix than any­thing. On top of all that - or really dug in among it - are the creak­ing, groan­ing vocals of Elliott’s. All together, as care­fully crafted and recorded as the music is, one still, more often than not, doesn’t really care.

What Lasts is not an improve­ment for These United States. It’s a change, but and not one in the right direc­tion. What Lasts takes all of the worst ele­ments of the States’ ear­lier albums, with only pinches of the best, and com­bines them into an album that is under­stand­ably weak. When the band returns to the sound of their ear­lier albums, it sounds as good as it did then. The prob­lem, then, is that they don’t seem inclined to do so.

This post is tagged 40-49, These United States