Sonic Sandwich: The Icy Poetry of Phoenix and the Stuffiness of White Lies

This is just to remark on the difference between Phoenix's 2008 album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix and their 2013 effort, Bankrupt. I was slow to come around on Wolfgang Amadeus... it was one of my first reviews and I was still sussing out my voice as a critic, so I was more reticent to give it praise, and more keen to take it down for minor flaws. It's one of many pieces of writing I've done that I consider embarrassing to have written. My current opinion of that album is that there's a real beauty to it, a humanity that evades a lot of synth-based music (usually by design,) a certain nuance and icy poetry. Every little bit has its place, and there's a soft touch to it. When I was younger I thought they were maybe aiming too high and missing, but as I've gotten more experienced I've learned that they were right on target. I like just about every track on that album very much.

The follow-up, Bankrupt!, is a different creation. It's much bolder and brasher, noisier, in the mold of Foster the People or Passion Pit. They've filed all those fine points down, and filled in the gaps with, well, whatever sounds. I object to it, in the sense that I liked the earlier product much better, but it's clear they're trying something different. And sometimes it works. Not enough to get a thumbs up from me, but I can adjust my head, I think, to say "Okay, they did this, and assuming it came out like they wanted, it is what it is." There are moments on Bankrupt that really do think are great, like "Oblique City," the closing track, which feels like a good midpoint between the two modes. They are good enough at being a big, hooky band, as on "Entertainment," and "Trying To Be Cool," that they deserve continued success, and they still have ideas as on "S.O.S. In Bel Air" and "Bourgeois," that make the album into a fairly consistent product. I just think they excelled on the previous album.

Another album that I reviewed early on was White Lies' second album, Ritual. I found it such a serious, stiff affair, a bit silly and oversized. But there's a charm to that, the deadly melodrama of the musical backdrop and the severity of the delivery, the way the singer just can't seem to loosen up, like your college roommate who's really into New Order. Unlike with Phoenix, who made a conscious alteration to their sound, White Lies appear to have merely ironed out some of the kinks in theirs for 2013's Big TV. They've found a balance of all the attributes in their sound that appeals to people. Everything about this album seems to have leveled up, in conception and execution. It just clicks more.

And I think, objectively, it's a better album, but I miss that weird stilted stuffiness of the earlier one. It's one of those quirks of personal taste, that I prefer the one that is a bit gangly and lumpy, compared to the slick post-success affair. There was a life to it, if a neurotic, utterly mannered one. It was nakedly itself. I would recommend Big TV first, to a new listener, but I'll listen to Ritual more often on my own.

These cases reminded me of each other, so I sandwiched them together in this article. In both cases, I liked the predecessors more, but that doesn't invalidate the later album. There are always questions in situations like this: Is it a response to success, an attempt to paly to the audience, or merely what happens sometimes after you've recorded one album: you want to record something that sounds a bit different? I can't say authoritatively in any direction, and I'm wary of people who presume to. Mine isn't to suggest why Bankrupt! or Big TV sound the way they do, after Wolfgang Amadeus and Rituals. Mine is just to listen, if I like them, and see if I can bring them to others who might.

So here's the bottom line: Phoenix and White Lies are both bands that use a synth-heavy approach rooted in 80s pop music. Whereas Phoenix's is hooky and intended for the dancefloor, White Lies' is contemplative and in its way, romantic. Both albums feature some solid hooks and really well-done tracks, although both bands have recorded albums I like better. Sometimes, you've just got to lay your stance bare.

One of my little pet peeves in other reviews is when the critic simply cannot get over their opinion of the earlier CD enough to judge the new one on its own merits. And that may in fact be the case here, but I'm willing to cop to it. I like Wolfgang Amadeus a lot, and this is a different thing that I don't like so much. But hey, I didn't always like Wolfgang Amadeus that much, so maybe in time I'll come around.

Phoenix: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

If there's a lyric sheet enclosed with my copy of this CD, I don't wanna look at it. Vocalist Thomas (no relation to Bruno) Mars, wails squeaky, tense, yet curiously laid back vocals obscured by the hammering backbeat and buzzing overtones and jangling guitars. Every so often I hear a stray lyric or a clearly audible refrain, but for the most part it's just there as a sonic ingredient. Maybe it's bloody great poetry, or maybe it's just stupid filler words that sound pretty when strung together. I wouldn't know and I don't think it's important.

Because if they're going to invoke Wolfgang Amadeus, I'm going to hold them to it. And since I wouldn't know the meaning of the words to the Magic Flute's Queen of the Night area if they were written out for me, I'm choosing willful ignorance here too. Like an opera or some such, I'm thinking more about the way the vocals sound set against the landscape of the instrument, as well as the way the songs fit together (well, I always think bout that) rather than what they're probably about.

This all occurred to me when I noticed the backing synth beginning to soar when Mars sings "Fallin', fallin', fallin'" on "1901," rather than following him down. "Falling," I proclaimed on Twitter, is the easiest word to hook a song around. It can be a joyful or mournful exclamation, and you can emulate the feeling with your voice. You can drag it out (as Steven Page did on "Over Joy" the song I was actually listening to at the time) or you can chant it breathlessly as Mars does here to make it urgent. Thinking less about the lyrics also allows me to forgive the Barry Gibb tone he cops on the third track, "Fences."

It's when the vocals drop away that you start to sense how little they truly matter. Few (non-Electronica) artists are doing instrumentals these days, so when something like "Love Like a Sunset" (part 1 unvocalized, and part 2 the conclusion) happens, you pay attention. I thought it was boring until I realized it was kinda beautiful. It's hard to sound grandiose without pushing yourself into overt pretension -- well, any moreso than name-checking Mozart and Liszt was going to anyway. Those tracks work because they're clean and focused. And really, no matter how much the album buzzes and hums and spirals, it never really loses control.

Which might actually be kind of a shame. The album's thrilling at times, but a moderated form of excitement, perhaps due to those layers upon layers of sounds weighing each track down. Aside from the crescendo of "Sunset," this is an album without much highs and lows, just frantic searching around the middle tones, whether with the tumbling drums of "Lasso" or the shimmering melancholy of "Rome." Every so often on the album you get a small moment that really hits you, but it moves on. Were it not for its preference to let the soundscape overwhelm, as opposed to reaching for pop simplicity, I'd be tempted to put it in the same class as Coldplay. But it's far from that.

Like a symphony, it feels distant and difficult to perceive for its individual parts. At least to me, it's obscure in meaning and open to interpretation in tone. But that doesn't stop it from being an interesting, mostly enjoyable construct of music. A lot of the time, it lets you crawl inside and feel it surround you and make whatever you like of it. Sometimes, like the charging "Lisztomania," it sounds like pop, but a lot of the time it doesn't. Sometimes the ambition pays off, sometimes it's just distracting.

I could've done with more "Love Like a Sunset" moments, however, and less of the disco rehab of "Fences" or the harpsichord on "Armistice," which ends the album just a tad abruptly. But that's on me. If they could've crafted something that sounded like "Sunset" along the same structural lines as "Lisztomania" or "1901," they really would've gotten me. All in all, it's good music to drift off to in any case.

ADDENDUM: Let it never be said I don't get around to doing my research eventually. Apparently the hook to "1901" goes "Folded, folded, folded," rather than "Falling." Which is a shame; I liked my version better, and it proves my point about the lyrics not being particularly important.

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