Local Natives
Gorilla Manor

Release Date: 2009 | Tracklist

Nobody likes coming late to a party. I don’t mean fashionably late, where everyone is just starting to have fun and there’s no lull. No; I mean the kind of late where you show up and everyone is too ***faced to function and all the best looking girls are taken. Case in point: St. Patrick’s Day 2009, I was stuck at a cash register until ten o’clock, and by the time I got to the party, everyone had just awoken from a “nap” (ie. passed out). When songs from Local Natives’ debut album Gorilla Manor began to appear on the internet, there was a danger that the band was simply going to come late to the party– all the indie kids would be passed out from their rye and Fleet Foxes (commonly known as a “Sun Giant”) or their gin and Veckatimests. Shades of Pecknold’s delicate yet forceful vocals and Grizzly Bear’s arrangement and composition style, are very clear markers of influence for the band. There’s a thin line in between influence, reference and rip-off. Local Natives come very close to the latter, but one thing keeps it from being rejected by the masses as artificial (because indie is so original): it’s so damn likeable.

There’s a vibrancy in these twelve tracks, hiding in every drum roll and bass rhythm. It’s a vibrancy that carries the album to heights that surprise the listener. Everything about the band seems so common, and yet the album has a treasure trove of tasty hooks. “The cistern is not even full,” states the main hook on the excellent reggae-via-garage rocker “Camera Talk”, somewhat ironic of an album jam packed with kinetic energy. It makes sense then, that the band decided to take on the elastic bass lines of the Talking Heads song “Warning Sign”. It works wonderfully well too, embodying the sense of fun that perpetuates from every memorable line on the album. Only closer “Sticky Thread” takes things down a notch, and unfortunately it feels unearned. The song loses the energy present in the better moments of the album and drags the end to a halt. It doesn’t necessarily ruin the album, which works surprisingly well as a cohesive unit with the amount of single oriented songs available and the unwavering tempo.

So Gorilla Manor triumphs in the sense that the listener doesn’t mind the lack of originality. Local Natives have branded a likeable mix of indie-rock and folk with an energetic core. With a rhythm section that can transition from slow groove to bombast at the flip of a switch, it’s easy to see where this energy comes from. Add in some harmony laden vocals (though there is better) and we have the blogospheres new darlings. Whether these ironically off-kilter (just look at the album art) L.A. rockers can maintain the nice bit of momentum started here, remains to be seen. For now we can sit back and enjoy the party. Let’s worry about the hangover tomorrow.

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3.8 excellent

Rank: #119 for 2009