West Coast duo Broken Bells skirt around the fringes of electronic rock on their second album, After the Disco.
The band, Brian Burton, the supa-produca otherwise known as Danger Mouse (The Black Keys, Gnarls Barkley, U2), and vocalist/guitarist James Mercer (The Shins), are a hybrid of past eras and genres of ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s rock who favour melodic psychedelic shadings.
Burton and Mercer are experimenters who push their envelope to the clean lines of form and songcraft, from where they let imagination guide the sounds.
After the Disco is a delectable slice of the Broken Bells agenda: skyward-reaching vocals riding evocative chordal passages steered by smart, punchy beats.
Mercer’s voice is made for tenor keening, and Burton’s extra chops as keyboardist/drummer are a dreamily compatible pairing. The band’s material sounds sent from the new wave past into the retro-obsessed future. They chip away at David Bowie’s outsider-from-outer space persona, but rather than linger like lonely aliens, they look for icy melodies and warm them with straight patterns and funky beats.
At moments in songs like Holding on for Life, the duo’s penchant for wistful choruses and unsettled lyrical content suggests the Bee Gees or Pet Shop Boys. But they keep their fingers on the pulse always – the songs are focused and wrapped in haunting textures.
The material is easy to connect with despite movable atmospheric shifts. Leave it Alone is a windy minor key reverie, while the The Changing Lights is a casual move to an urgent groove that suggests a forgotten B-side, an overlooked Beatle track telegraphed decades into the future.
Broken Bells is deep into structures that both Danger and Mercer use as foundations for trippy sound tweaking. Twangy electric guitars and old-school keyboards animate Lost Wonderland and No Matter What You’re Told.
The duo is comfortable with being creative, and the songs would work with an acoustic guitar and a Wurlitzer – the rest is top shelf sonic gravy. It’s pop-friendly alternative music that doesn’t look to be popular.
— Dean Gordon-Smith is a Vernon-based musician who reviews new releases for The Morning Star every Friday.
