#488 Said the Whale - Little Mountain

Recommended via some random, short, unfollowedupupon conversation on okcupid. Welcome to the future of cultural participation!

Can we call this the first 00’s indie rock revival album of all time? Can you have a revival just two years hence?

This is a band well primed to catch on: neck deep in catchy, and evoking a half dozen bands that I love, and that are well-loved in indie circles, putting their own touches on well-worn tropes, owning them and expanding them, even if stopping just short of exploding them. That is to say, Little Mountain is a good title for an album that's adventurous, if not daring, keeping home over the nearest hills in its forays into lands wondrous. That’s good enough for me, especially when home is a nexus of greatness.

The vocals have an endearing reediness that evokes The Shins (We are 1980, 2010), The Decemberists (Big Sky, MT) and They Might be Giants (The Reason) in turn, with the occasional New Pornagraphers boy/girl interplays. Musicals inspire similar namedrops, wielding Tokyo Police Club’s bounce and twang, The Long Winters’ desperate majesty, Los Campesinos joyous jumpalong energy, and even Amnesicac-era Radiohead’s breeble and quaver terror buzz, in turn. Most importantly, though, they don’t settle into one of these styles. If there’s anyone they truly evoke on an album level it’s a band like Wolf Parade, not for any one sound, but for the wild, flailing variety that they lash out with.

Separately, Lucky deserves specific mention as a joyous burster, as do the beat breakdown in We Are 1980, the dropout at 1:20 in Jesse, AR, and Big Wave Goodbye’s New Orleans Neutral Milk Hotel raveup outro. This album makes me fucking grin like music hasn’t made me grin since Sticking Fingers into Sockets.

This is indie rock like they don’t make any more, bursting with ideas and angles, refusing to lean on any one particular stylistic crutch. So much of what’s gotten popular over the last two years has a pidgeonholable style, perched squarely on some combination of dancability, reverb, and nostalgia, huddling around a signature sound. Someone was telling me that all of the songs on the Drums album are in the same key; I can’t verify that, but symbolically, that makes my point.

This reminds me of how I felt in 2002. In 2003 The Shins, The Decemberists, The Strokes, The New Pornographers all put out second albums and all of them were disappointing retreads. But in that space between those bands’ first and second albums, all seemed possible. Indie was breaking open into new pop directions. This album would have fit right in, and it represents just about the fastest retro turnaround possible. Enjoy it! 5/5

You might like this if: If you understood half the namedrops I made in this review. If you loved indie rock in 2002 and want to hear one of the best albums that era never saw.