Review Summary: The music is pure, or so I’ve been told
Some artists just refuse to stay in one place for too long. That’s true for Strange Ranger in multiple ways - not only has the group relocated from Montana to Oregon to Pennsylvania since their 2010 formation, they’ve also changed their band name (originally Sioux Falls), and tried their hand at a host of musical styles, with some of their high points being the sprawling
Rot Forever, variously described as post-punk and Midwest emo, and
Remembering the Rockets, a near-pastiche of various late-’90s/early-’00s indie acts brought to life by great songwriting and wonderful guitar tone. Strange Ranger’s 2021 mixtape
No Light in Heaven left no doubt that the band still wasn’t ready to settle down, with its collection of short tunes veering in all sorts of unexpected directions, incorporating various electronic and noisy influences.
With
Pure Music, Strange Ranger is back in the game of creating a conventional album rather than an heterogenous mixture of half-baked (if sometimes brilliant) little ideas. This isn’t to say that their latest creation is truly “conventional”, though.
Pure Music inherits the sense of weirdness from the group’s mixtape, with the influences here forming a very unwieldy list -
Loveless-style shoegaze, ‘80s pop sheen, chillwave beats, roaring saxophone, and a dose of the dreamy but catchy indie rock which formed the backbone of
Remembering the Rockets. All this probably seems like the recipe for an absolute trainwreck, but while there are a few iffy moments, Strange Ranger have managed to craft a record which is not only interesting, but pretty darn excellent.
There’s at least one fascinating thing happening in all ten of
Pure Music’s tracks - the album’s basic tenets include (but are not limited to) deadpan male vocals, more energetic and beautiful female vox, arresting melodies, vibes ranging from dreamy to lounge to poppy, and frequent appearance of spoken word/samples of conversation set so far back in the mix as to be near-incomprehensible. Instrumentally, the record is an oft-garish mix of traditional rock instruments, prominent saxophone, and electronics. How all of these elements are deployed vary widely - the bookends offer near-ambient lethargy before building into grander sonic structures, while in between the listener will find a panoply of different sounds, from the experimental pop of “Dream” to the completely off-the-wall “everything but the kitchen sink” approach of “Blue Shade” and the beautifully catchy driving beat of “Wide Awake”. A few songs might be slightly trimmed without much loss, and there are some cringe-inducing lyrics which pop up in “Ask Me About My Love Life” (delivered in autotune, naturally), but for the most part,
Pure Music is an engrossing listen which only becomes more enjoyable with every spin.
Strange Ranger’s latest venture stakes a claim that they are one of the most innovative acts currently active in the indie scene - an almost unbelievable statement, given their last true LP,
Remembering the Rockets, worked primarily as an appeal to the nostalgic familiarity of older bands in the genre.
Pure Music is transparently imperfect but remarkably enjoyable, while showcasing a lot of creativity, delivered in a spirit of wild abandon. True to form, Strange Ranger aren’t resting on their laurels. Who knows where they’ll go next.
