Review Summary: Beautiful, invigorating, addictive. A must have.
I think many times during our venture into music discovery, we come across a few albums and artists that make a huge sentimental impression. Be it the heartfelt lyrical content that we can personally relate to, the sweet emotional victory prescribed through an intense melody, or maybe a connection to the genre alone. For me, that feeling came from Broken Bells' self titled album
Broken Bells. Who knew that a secret project from James Mercer of The Shins and Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton could turn out so gorgeous? After time, even the album art becomes nostalgic and beautiful. In fact, Rolling Stone gave the record a four star review, even calling it, "The years coolest left field pop disc" in 2010. The two band members met at a music festival in 2004, and four years later, began recording on what would become an infective and timeless construction.
The entire album is like a line of coke for a music lover. The highs and lows throughout their freshman collaboration blend in an artful, mind blowing, and eye opening experience. A melodic, indie meets pop, meets experimental paradise-
Broken Bells brings together the main points of any high quality musical production. Love stories, the contemplation of life, and a perfect marriage of acoustics, melodic violin, and a certain wistful sadness makes for much more than just a "side project" it may be viewed for. Any track on the album can testify for this, like intro "High Road", expressing a glorious dejection masked by a medium tempo and acoustics reminiscent of The Shins
Oh, Inverted World . "Sailing to Nowhere", the most notable track on the album, also expresses such a melancholy vibe covered by a contagious indie affection. In fact, it's so infectious that you may not even notice the lyrics essentially implying murder and sailing away to paradise.
No matter the most critical musical reviewers taste, there is no doubting that
Broken Bells is a classic, meant for any top notch album collection. Not much else in the music world can truly sum up what marvelous tuneage is made of-down to earth relatable feeling, quality instrumentals, and a vocalist that is undeniably recognizable. A definite recommendation for any indie fan or lover of all that is prodigious.
