Review Summary: Louder than usual, "The High Country" is a brisk listen that features some great cuts but is bloated by some entirely uninteresting ones. Best songs: "Line On You," "Full Possession Of All Her Powers," "Trevor Forever"
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin has been consistently releasing solid indie pop since their 2005 debut album "Broom." While "Broom" remains their best work, all of their releases have been pleasant listens. However, with their most recent album, "The High Country," the band have turned up the amps and haven't looked back - this is by far their loudest and most raucous album. This is exemplified in the first track "Line On You," which starts the record with a drumstick countoff before immediately hitting the listener with a immense wall of fuzzed out guitars. Still, the great melodies shine through, as the singer croons "We got so goddamned drunk / we felt ashamed when we woke up." The masterful use of quiet-loud dynamics make it a highlight of the whole album.
"Step Brother City" is another fun cut, with
Weezer-style "ooh-oohs" and some of the album's best couplets ("All the good songs and poems are all about you / And all the bad ones too.") amplified by a high energy instrumental. Unfortunately, the album fails to sustain this high energy. Too many of the songs are content to resign themselves to a muddy and uninteresting fuzz that make the lyrics unintelligible. "Goal Mind," "Foreign Future," and "Magnet's New Summer 'Do" all feel like dull fat that should have been trimmed early on. Others like "Song W" (a reworked b-side from the "Broom" era) and closer "Total Meltdown" are inoffensive plains that fail to make up for the valleys.
The album lasts a meager 26 minutes, barely lasting long enough to make an impression. Only one of the album's eleven songs breaches the three minute mark. On one hand, this makes the weaker cuts less abrasive, as they seem to be spread out pretty evenly throughout the tracklist. However, the album kind of blurs together. The quiet and slow ballad "Madeline" (my sister's name!) does its best to break up the monotony, but is a little too uninteresting to do so. "Trevor Forever" does a better job, an angsty teenage anthem that features a pained scream that is sure to get your attention if the album had been losing you before this.
The album's best cuts are truly great, but they're not enough to save the album from mediocrity. I can't help feeling that this release would have been better served as an EP that stars the best cuts with none of the fat. As is, though, this is a decent record that is worth listening to for the gems but will not blow anyone's mind.
