Portugal. The Man
Church Mouth


1.5
very poor

Review

by 204409 EMERITUS
July 23rd, 2007 | 78 replies


Release Date: 2007 | Tracklist

Review Summary: Portugal the Man tries to bring the rocknroll to indie and fails.

Touring with The Fall of Troy, Damiera, and especially Tera Melos sets the bar pretty god damn high. However, Portugal the Man seems to roll with the best of them (check http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYViIrLNNg4 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvoWMggcts0). But hey, it's 2007. We get that they have jammed with some legit bands. We get that the Gatsby's American Dream singer digs them enough to do guest spots. We get that they're from Alaska. Portugal the Man is a band that got by a lot of hype and cred on their first album Waiter: "You Vultures!," and need to produce a sophomore anti-slump to get listeners to respect their whimsical brand of dancy rock. It does help that they at least have a less curiously titled album in Church Mouth (as weird as that still is).

However, what have they brought to the table beyond that? It seems like Portugal the Man have once again brought a pastiche of rocknroll, indie, psychedelic, and post-punk that in theory is not too many steps removed from the style they were working with on Waiter: "You Vultures!". This time around though there is a distinct emphasis on the rock part of that blend and a subversion of their post-punk roots. Where at moments on their previous album they could sound like The Mars Volta covering The Beatles, this time around it's more like Aerosmith covering For the Mathematics. Aesthetically, Church Mouth is like forcing an N64 game into a Gamecube, even though everybody knows a Gamecube isn't backwards compatible. This weird reversion to an older, retro rock style does not suit Portugal the Man well on this album at all. They seem to be desperately striving to achieve the analog authenticity and energy of rock music but are doing it through a self-consious, ironic, digital filter. It pays off on their most energetic tracks like "Church Mouth" that benefit from the pentatonic riffing in the bass, but a lot of other tracks just seem to get weighed down by the somewhat antiquated style. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with embracing a rock influence (even Every Time I Die pulled it off with their album Hot Damn), but Portugal the Man seems to be throwing it in to the mix for the sake of quirkiness or generating a jangling sound rather than because they actually striving to rock your face off.

And all of these complaints criticize the surface of the music and not the core of it all. Looking at the inner-workings of Church Mouth though produces equally unappealing observations. To start, the songwriting is massively boring. Nearly every song is hindered by its verse-chorus-verse structure. And, at that, they nearly always put in a quiet, clean-tone bridge to chop up the energy of the verses and choruses, leaving a formula that is not unlike the song structure woes found on Taking Back Sunday's Tell All Your Friends. All of the songs are the same song in terms of arc and structure, making the whole album feel homogeneous. In terms of the instruments and technicality, for a band that has been repped for having prog influences or leanings, the playing is decidedly unchallenging and uninteresting. The bass playing is fantastically tasteful at times, but other than that and a few mathy interludes, I don't hear anything scintillating. It's just a whole bunch of pentatonic rock riffs. Don't let the throwback/soul/ironic/indie/reverby/imitation-Cedric-Bixler vocals throw you off. This is all pretty mundane. Also, the production is pretty woeful. I have no problem with the slow sections that feature clean-tone guitar, which considering that all of the bridges are these kinds of slow sections, and every song has the same structure, is once per song. However, the guitar tones and mixing on the other parts are frustrating. In tune with trying to invoke a rock sound, there's a lot of fuzz in the guitar tone. This drowns out the chord voicings a lot, especially on the most energetic tracks. Also, the reverb and distortion given to the vocals to lend them body is really obvious and tasteless. Really the only thing done well in the way of production is the bass tone, which uses distortion in a great way; there's not too much, but there's enough to add extra intensity to the grinding rhythms. It's as if the pros of production coincide with the pros in the musicianship. Weird. Also, another brief positive is to mention that the organ synthesizer thrown in to mix really complements the vocals when they are imitating soul.

So, from an aesthetic level and a specific level this album eats it pretty hard. By looking at the pedigree of bands that support or have toured with Portugal the Man you'd expect something more than this tepid modernized take on riff-rock. (Aside: Didn't The White Stripes already decide it'd be funny to bring blues and rocknroll into modern pop music? I didn't think we needed that for ironic indie rock too.) At the end of the day, this album is not even worth the hard drive space or the compact disc it's going to be printed on. If anything the bass playing should be appreciated by reading the tabs rather than sitting through the entirety of this slumping sophomore LP.



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user ratings (452)
3.6
great

Comments:Add a Comment 
Kage
July 23rd 2007


1172 Comments


Wow, you ripped into this one. Nice.

IsItLuck?
Emeritus
July 23rd 2007


4957 Comments


Ouch. I was listening to the EP these guys released and thought it was better than average so I don't know how this will compare, but I will still give it a listen just to truly see how it is.

Fort23
July 23rd 2007


3775 Comments


This looks like it would suck. Nice review.

Two-Headed Boy
July 23rd 2007


4527 Comments


This is a pretty horrible band.

Great work as usual.

Mikesn
Emeritus
July 23rd 2007


3707 Comments

Album Rating: 2.5

Pretty boring album. Nice review.

204409
Emeritus
July 24th 2007


3998 Comments

Album Rating: 1.5

Ya it's sort of like indie + rock + legit grooves which sums up a lot of Amputechture (this is in many ways not good).

embroglio
July 24th 2007


219 Comments

Album Rating: 3.5

except without the wankery? i think this is a great album. simple fun pop music.

CowGlue
July 26th 2007


32 Comments

Album Rating: 3.5

its a pretty good album i'd say. but i don't really judge music that much so...

astrel
July 26th 2007


2615 Comments


This album sounds like many things I have already heard before. Only much more tepid.

204409
Emeritus
July 27th 2007


3998 Comments

Album Rating: 1.5

but i don't really judge music that much so...




I'm never encountered a self-deprecating type on this website haha.

whatduffhuck7
August 3rd 2007


163 Comments

Album Rating: 3.0

disagree with many of the things you say with the exception of the point that the first LP was much better. That may only be becuase the first LP was such a amazing cd. It was not expected in my mind for them to make anything that good again.



This album isn't as bad as it is put out to be. Yes, i do hate the verse chorus verse chorus sructure in todays modern music but this album is pretty descent. church mouth, my mind, and Shade are all excelent tracks.



Give it a chance...

204409
Emeritus
August 3rd 2007


3998 Comments

Album Rating: 1.5

But I did. What's there to like?

Abaddon2005
August 3rd 2007


684 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

Good review, though I'll still be checking this out as I liked the first disc. Also Nick did you check out Best Interest? you might like them.

Abaddon2005
August 8th 2007


684 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

meh.. I like some individual songs but as a whole this gets a lot more boring than Waiter. I wonder how much the departure of their keyboard player played part in this.

yousuckatlife
August 9th 2007


5 Comments

Album Rating: 5.0

Awesome band. Great album. I will never take advice from a person who listens to such crap as Strung Out and Fall of troy. When u listen to crap like that why even bother to try and review such great bands not even near your calibar of musical taste.

Cravinov13
August 9th 2007


3854 Comments


You're a really young and angry fan boy arn't you?

yousuckatlife
August 9th 2007


5 Comments

Album Rating: 5.0

Yeh, It's like 50 cent trying to review evergreen terrace.

Cravinov13
August 9th 2007


3854 Comments


and your like a parasite on an old man's a$$

yousuckatlife
August 9th 2007


5 Comments

Album Rating: 5.0

Little kids who can't cuss.

Cravinov13
August 9th 2007


3854 Comments


due to the site censors I was afraid you'd be unable to comprehend what the three *** meant.



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