Review Summary: Happy, bouncy, technical prog-pop. What's not to love?
A couple of days ago, Good Tiger released their second album,
We Will All Be Gone, and I found myself initially underwhelmed. I loved their debut album's combination of technical guitar playing and frontman Elliot Coleman's soulful ceiling-caressing vocals to a fault, and the significant cutting back on the technicality of the sophomore album made it a lot less enjoyable on first listen.
We Will All Be Gone has subsequently grown on me as a completely separate entity from its predecessor, but I still find myself missing the over-the-top guitar work that made the first album so much fun. Fortunately, I have Lines in the Sky (henceforth, LITS) to fill that void with
Beacon.
A Nashville-based progressive rock power-trio, LITS has put out three albums since 2014 that have all mined more or less the same sonic territory as their newest release
Beacon. There hasn't been as much an evolution of their sound as there has been a maturation and honing of it. What you get with
Beacon is flashy—but not aggressively so—musicianship combined with soaring vocal melodies. And it's all delivered in concise and fat-free slices of radio-ready pop/rock bliss.
While there is certainly a verbose quality to the musicianship on
Beacon, the playing on the album doesn't ever overpower the songs. There are winding jumpy riffs and grooves that bounce off each other and spiral in unexpected directions, but
Beacon's focus never wavers and the musicianship always exist to support the songs. With songwriting as dense and instrumentals as busy as these, it is often easy for songs and albums to feel claustrophobic and directionless, especially when the instruments are competing with the vocals, but LITS uses their instrumental flash in very tasteful ways and find ways for every piece of the puzzle to coexist. While the basis of the album's sound is progressive-leaning post-hardcore, incorporating jazzy math-rock and understated electronica flourishes, that has a well-defined identity which makes the album sound cohesive as a whole, there is enough variation and creativity to prevent it from sounding tired and repetitive.
The only downside to the album is that
Beacon does not sound particularly groundbreaking, and struggles a little bit to be memorable. Every song has enough cool parts to make you replay it, but even after a couple of listens to the album you may struggle to remember a standout hook. However,
Beacon's combination of upbeat attitude, sheer musicianship and heavy melodicism is just undeniably...likeable. After all, what's not to like about happy, bouncy, technical prog?
Highlights:
Not About You
Teeth
Ancient Insult
