Archive for Friday, September 5, 2008
CD review for The Broken West, "Now or Heaven"
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The Broken West
Steamboat Springs — "Now or Heaven"
The Broken West isn't really in the business of breaking down walls. The Los Angeles band is in the business of making effortlessly tight indie pop, though, and that seems to be enough for them.
Breaking away from its California rock roots, on "Now or Heaven" The Broken West gets rid of the sunshiny guitars and carefree air, replacing the general lift of its debut, "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On," with an amped-up role for the rhythm section. It's an interesting break - getting rid of the elements that set the group apart from every other celebrated indie rock band from the past five years - and it doesn't always work.
That comes out in a particularly unfortunate streak of songs about halfway through "Now or Heaven," where monotonous bass beats overpower the played-out emotions on the surface of "House of Lies." Things don't get much better on the bouncier but equally boring "Smartest Man Alive," and they keep up a snail's pace on "Got It Bad." Lyrical context was never really a strong point for The Broken West, and that's all these songs have to stand on.
But when "Now or Heaven" does hit on those little bits of happiness that made "I Can't Go On" stand out from its peers, the results are a deliberately joyous use of canned drums and dance pop synthesizers. Those songs are dispersed well enough throughout - with opener "Gwen, Now and Then," mid-album break "Perfect Games" and second-to-last track "Terror for Two" - that "Now or Heaven" has the complexity a band-of-the-moment needs in its follow-up album.
Rating: '''
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