Review Summary: Early stumbles.
Listening to Pinegrove on "Cardinal" reminds me a bit of sitting through a high school talent show. In such an event, there will be flickers of promise and genuine talent; but you're likely to have a hard time remembering them after a barrage of irredeemably awkward, cloyingly melodramatic performances. After it's all over, you'll want to wish all the kids well on their quests to find themselves, fully aware that they have some ground left to cover.
The "Pinegrove sound" has been overhyped and oversold as some genius bastard child of alternative, indie, folk, country, and a few other choice genres. Truthfully, though, Pinegrove aren't doing anything all that remarkably different from their contemporaries and forebears. If you've ever listened to American Football, You Blew It!, or even 90% of mainstream radio music between the years of 2011 and 2015, then you will be comforted to know that most of what you hear on "Cardinal" will not sound all that foreign, nor very innovative.
Yes, there are bright and spangly guitars, plunkety-plunk banjos, some twangy bluegrass slide, perhaps even the faint ringing of windchimes here or there. I will venture so far as to say there might be some guest spots by a harmonica and something that sounds not unlike an accordion. However, Pinegrove don't employ any of these accompaniments to great effect; that is to say that there's not much subtlety or grace in their inclusion. Instead, you will find them variously shoehorned in to about every nook and cranny of this album in which they'll fit. Which is not to say that they aren't a welcome addition; but to say that Pinegrove are some prodigious purveyors of a brand-new form of the genre is far-fetched.
The relative familiarity of this sound brings to mind another problem with "Cardinal", which is that some tracks feel totally indistinguishable from others. Indeed, the first time I listened to "Cardinal" I thought that I had accidentally skipped backwards when the second track began - but no, those tracks really do just sound that interchangeable. This issue becomes more overbearing towards the second half, when the songs not only sound more like one song continuously, but also become increasingly boring and cookie-cutter (how many more indie albums will feature a penultimate song about the end of a relationship, with lines like "We had some good ideas but we never left that ****ing room," before we outlaw this heinous practice altogether?)
Another matter compounding "Cardinal"'s difficulty in fully taking flight is that many tracks yield feelings of untapped potential. There are many moments which seem ready to provide climactic emotional payoffs, but they never quite materialize in that direction, and more often than not they result only in lackluster choruses or otherwise uninteresting "explorative" bits. This herky-jerk "Gotcha!" songwriting works on earlier moments, such as in the rising and falling choruses of 'Cadmium', but as the album drags onward, it begins to feel more lazy and cheap than clever.
The cringy awkwardness pooling together on this LP, like the sweat that collects in newly-hairy armpits during a first-time makeout session, is instilled and exacerbated by the performances of Evan Stephens Hall, Pinegrove's lead singer and guitarist. A feeling of agita grew within me like an angry cancer, and throbbed more and more savagely with every cat-like yowl, agonizingly ugly falsetto note, and faux-Southern affectation (these guys are from Montclair, New Jersey: the jig is up) passing over Hall's lips. His lyrics, too, are populated with many try-hard quips of angst: from the very first time I heard phrases such as, "Walking outside labyrinthine," and, "My steps keep splitting my grief through these solipsistic moods," I knew I was in for a bumpy ride. Those lines break out in the opening moments of "Cardinal" and things don't improve much from there.
There are moments and elements that are briefly redemptive, though. Hall's guitar work is understatedly beautiful, especially on tracks such as 'Then Again' and 'Aphasia', which are the two stand-outs of the album. Pinegrove's overall vibe is still warm and alluring, too, lack of originality aside. Some moments took me right back to those uncomplicated sunny afternoons of my childhood with their uplifting bursts of nostalgia.
I only wish that Pinegrove could stay in those moments and more confidently bear them out, instead of spending so much time trying so hard to be something that they are not. I say we give them a few more years; by then, they'll have themselves figured out.
