Review Summary: Start with: base of Bent Knee. Add 2 cups Dan Deacon, 1 cup Of Montreal, 2 tsp Anamanaguchi. Mix well. Results may vary.
Bent Knee, now 10 year veterans of the indie scene, have always been a difficult band to categorize; often straddling the line between art pop and prog rock. Over the years they have produced a number of consistently surprising LP's under a single mantra: "expect the unexpected." In 2021's 'Frosting,' Bent Knee continues this tradition, this time diving deep into the wells of electronic pop to construct an engaging and eclectic, if uneven sixth album.
In it, gorgeous harmonious hooks serve as a comforting cradle for sharp, off-kilter fractured verses that pulse and bounce on top of the gooey foundation. Like a neon drenched brass-work juggernaut held together with firm confidence by impenetrable sugar sweet bubble gum. Pulsing & plodding with sweetly dissonant harmonies - at times pausing to belch technicolor smoke and turn its harmonies high to the sky.
'Frosting,' more than any other Bent Knee album, seems to take obvious cues from a surprising variety of contemporary artists. Clear flashes of Kero Kero Bonito, Anamanaguchi, and Iglooghost pop before your eyes in 3-minute-&-change blips. In doing so, the band moves away from high concept arthouse prog and towards a tighter, more textured psychedelic glitch-pop sound. This is a major musical pivot: and while it pans out well for the band - given their impressive technical chops and propensity for frequent thematic and harmonic gearshifts - it does detract from the album's overall authenticity and cohesion.
Despite this, 'Frosting's' 52 minute runtime is packed to the brim with attention-grabbing highlights. The glimmering ascendant keyboard progression of 'Casper,' for example, is deftly counterbalanced by pristine acoustic strings and bubbly autotuned vocal harmonies - singing of mementos and memories:
"I hug myself and kiss the mirror - never alone,"
"The thread of your sweater - pull 'til it's gone,"
Later, the chugging bellows of 'The Upward Spiral' burst in contrast against the preceding sonic sweetness. Heavily distorted guitar work and mangled vocals - screeching out in a disarming fervor - stomp forward with a plodding determination. As a sonic demonstration of manic-depression it is brilliant: squealing guitar tangents attempt to wriggle free before being secured under lock & key by the oppressive drum beat that crashes and bashes with authoritarian dread.
And then: burnout. 'Set It Off' sees the subject crawling out of the wreckage: a delicate, patient serenade, characterized by echoes of the prior Spiral's distortion. In it, Swain sings of an empty heart drifting out to sea, no longer anchored to another. Its patient, thoughtful chord progression and moving melody serve as a reflective, emotional highlight:
"But who, but you? You win my heart..."
"I'm ruined out here, running on fossils and a prelude..."
This all may seem like high praise - and it is - but these emotional and harmonic highs are so often derailed by fractured gearshifts that the experience offered by 'Frosting' can be downright jarring. The mid-album interlude "Pause," for example, wails away with a high pitched electronic screech. As warm as these make the waves of harpsichord harmonies that flank them, by contrast, they cannot be categorized as anything other than unpleasant in the moment.
Really, the album is at its strongest when the band strikes a balance between its chemically-crafted hooks and the bright instrumental dissonance that surrounds them. Odd for a band that has made a name for themselves on bold, tangential experimentation. The album's lead single, 'Queer Gods,' is a case-in-point: a track that sounds like nothing else in the band's catalogue. Shockingly, a clear candidate for a popular radio hit, it features smokey Amy Winehouse-esque vocals that croon over an addictively bombastic psych pop banger that resembles a Dan Decon head trip filtered through the lens of a slick Portugal The Man single.
Similarly, 'The Floor Is Lava' takes cues from M83, evidenced by its patient, glittering melodies, tied to a chord structure cleverly devised to resemble a bedtime story. Flanked by faint spoken word recordings over a warm choral arrangement, there is a true sense of childlike wonder to the track, which is carried over to the airtight 'Cake Party.' With its loose shuffling beat counterbalanced by a swelling vocal crescendo, it hits you like a shot of serotonin straight in the arm. This would serve as a sweet climactic outro for 'Frosting' - leaving one's tongue coated in the cotton candy sweet harmonies of Swain & Co's ruminations on childlike wonder...if the band's appetite for experimentation and maximalism had less of an iron grip on the track listing.
Instead, we are served yet another jarring gearshift in the discordant 'OMG,' which awkwardly leads into the (admittedly crushing) album closer 'Not This Time.' Unlike 'Land Animal' or 'Shiny Eyed Babies,' 'Frosting' doesn't seem to have the same thematic or emotional consistency tying its cavalcade of sharply contrasting musical ideas together. In truth, it presents itself as a difficult album to dissect: it adroitly avoids the application of any obvious thesis statement or unifying theme. Instead, 'Frosting' appears to be tied together by tenacity itself, and very little else. Resulting in an album that is exciting, if uneven.
In any case, the album is easy to recommend to anyone with a broad-reaching musical curiosity. You may love it. You may loathe it. But I guarantee that you won't be bored by it.
