Review Summary: Great alterative indie album for early 2008
Sylvia Plath: Celebrated Author. Tragic Icon. Indie-pop muse? Sure, why not. In the case of the Envy Corps, Sylvia Plath proves quite the anthemic subject matter, as an early track off the quartet’s second record
Dwell gets devoted entirely to her. Though the
Bell Jar author would seem an out of place topic for most bands, for the Envy Corps, she’s pretty much standard fare. The topics of
Dwell range from the Maxamillion Robespierre to the California Gold Rush, charged by lead singer Luke Pettipoole’s clever lyrics that seep with as much charm as they do intimacy, and as most recent upstart alternative acts will tell you (Arctic Monkeys, anyone?), a great way to get the press’ attention is to blend a quirky lyrical wit with some sly musical playfulness, and the Envy Corps succeed at both. Hailing from Bumble***, Iowa, Envy Corps already have garnered a little bit of buzz about them, getting opening slots for acts like The Killers who, like the Envy Corps will be attempting in the upcoming months, cracked the UK before catching on back home. Predictably, the hype machine has already begun turning for these guys, with comparisons to Radiohead and Arcade Fire giving the Envy Corps ridiculously disproportionate shoes to fill.
Not unjustifiably, either. For all intents and purposes, the Envy Corps should be a “next big thing” type of act. Moments of
Dwell invite comparisons with several media darlings of the past five years or so, with production including elements like huge-sounding glides of guitar lines, hollow drums, and mandatory indie-pop glockenspiel. The result is an amalgamation that stands individual from their closest contemporaries, stealing ideas from their peers to create a sound all their own.
See, first and foremost,
Dwell is a slick collection of alternative anthems with hooks at every turn. The Envy Corps take advantage of an adept ear for pop music, never failing to utilize opportunities to drop a catchy guitar lick or a sing-along vocal chant. Lead single “Story Problem”, for example, proves a gem of an introduction to the group, a monstrously addictive tune decked out with hand-clapping beats and a “da-da-da-da” refrain destined to stay stuck in heads for weeks. It’s a song that slowly devolves into chaos, the bridge climaxing in a euphoric mixture of synths and chorus, with Pettipoole’s Yorke-ian tenor soaring above it all before ending with not-quite-cliché applause. It sets a standard for
Dwell almost as high as the one set by the critics, and in a scenario where it seems the only thing
Dwell can do is disappoint, the Envy Corps deliver in full.
Dwell’s execution is near-flawless, providing immense entertainment almost invariably throughout its eleven song duration. Songs like “Rhinemaidens” and “Wires and Wool” bounce along at a vivacious pace with a jovial atmosphere, the former grooving steadily with sighing backup vocals and open hi hats on upbeats before rounding off with a resounding cry of
”Lets sing songs to spite the devil!” It’s a moment whose emotion Envy Corps replicate several times on
Dwell, a feeling of being wrapped in sheer ecstasy by the unwavering joy of it all. Even when Pettipoole dabbles in darker lyrics, such as on “Sylvia (The Beekeeper)” (
”Oh Sylvia, Sylvia Plath, died with the lights off, I heard that doesn’t hurt as much”), he still sounds intimate and somehow uplifting, the core factor to
Dwell’s charm.
That core factor is an invariable feeling of
warmth to the whole of
Dwell. The entire thing sounds like an expression of uninhibited passion, mostly due to the monstrously uplifting tunes, but also from Pettipoole’s fascinating lyrical style. Though his most entertaining/quirky moments come when he dabbles with history and literature figures, the real fascination comes when he brings it to a more personal level. The Midwestern acoustic nod “Rooftop” sounds downright carefree in its melancholy, making it easy to sympathize with Pettipoole when he sighs
”I need a rooftop I can look from or jump off. I guess that I get this way.” Pettipoole’s offbeat persona drives the majority of
Dwell, from the choice lyric of breakup anthem “Wires and Wool” (
”In the time it took to write you this song, I could have crossed my last Rubicon”) to the epic finality of album closer “Baby Teeth”. At the end of
Dwell’s run, when Pettipoole cries
”My strategy always was to kiss the tip of your tongue so the words could not roll off, so the vowels could not form. How clever I thought I was”, it’s a sweet release of all the emotion
Dwell flies through, closing an album beautiful in its naivety with a therapeutic emotional release.
In retrospect,
Dwell’s not the perfect album, but in terms of indie pop acts with the curse of hype, it’s not a disappointment. The minor slip ups here simply stem from the faulted songs being second tier tracks, not from any great error of judgment or execution, and these bumps are few and far between, and are generally followed with a track up to snuff with the album’s greater tunes. The somewhat wandering “Walls” fails to impress with its electro-organ introduction, but the pulsating and amiable “99,100” succeeds it with giant keyboards, a steady bassline, and a heart melting falsetto chorus that resuscitates the bliss developed by the opening quit. At face value,
Dwell is chock full of great songs, but further inspection proves it’s a record with intricacies to make it lovable. The hype machine finally produced a great act; all that’s left is for us to listen.
