Review Summary: Imperfect yet satisfying
Spring Grove is a weirder album than it first appears, and it’s this elusive strangeness which most appeals to me. Cincinnati’s The Ophelias have always crafted rather easy-going indie pop/rock/folk, and their latest record feels comfortable presenting itself as a cozy and vaguely rustic listen, as the album artwork hints at. Judging by those metrics, the results are rather unconvincing - the hooks mostly unimpressive, the thirteen (mostly rather brief) songs, even after my dozen or so listens all the way through, rarely memorable as individual tracks. The arrangements, too, are what I’d normally call too “busy”, strings dipping in and out, occasionally swelling to garish heights. It’s the last factor, though, which paradoxically sells the sound for me, adding an uneasy background eeriness to the proceedings, especially when combined with these songs’ frequent tendency towards feeling a little
too sped-up, just a touch off-kilter, as if a slightly more languid pace would’ve served them better in showcasing their sonic beauty, but something’s pushing the musicians into a frantic state. Together, these qualities are faintly stress-inducing, etching something sinister against the sentimental lyricism documenting everyday incidents and nostalgic reminiscence, and the whole package somehow strikes a chord. In short, it’s an album which feels relevant to the realities of modern existence, it’s combination of gentle and brooding managing to echo the uneasy dance of maintaining simple rhythms of ordinary life in a world gone insane, with people jittery from omnipresent technology, a thousand tiny alarm bells ringing over and over on our phones (BUZZ, there’s another one), sapping not only our attention spans but any chance at inner peace. All that’s to say that the ostensible flaws of
Spring Grove are ultimately what makes it resonate beyond the decent yet unremarkable indie release it seems to be (albeit one notably produced by Julien Baker). While this album doesn’t make me feel any better about living in such unsettling times, I’ve nonetheless found certain meaning in
Spring Grove’s undergirding of airy pleasantries with moody depths. It’s an imperfect yet satisfying soundtrack to this era.
