From LA with love comes a ten-piece with as much hippie soul as Donovan downing carrot juice from his very own cup of hyacinths. The colourfully old school ‘Up From Below’ is the band’s first album and it provides an interesting insight into the Californian folk act’s work.
The first track ‘Forty Day Dream’ comes marching at you from the off. It is truly a red herring of an opener, deceitfully euphoric and catchy. If even the majority of what was to come could encapsulate the spirit of the opening track, the album could really be something to shout about.
The second track on the record goes for a sing-a-long style vocal melody with plenty going on, but lacks any real punch. This song really sums up much of the records willingness to belong somewhere else, and it cant, and as a result sounds ever so slightly soulless, empty, and flat.
Title track ‘Up From Below’ continues the sense of mild apathy. Its busier and cheerier than the previous track, and it shines slightly brighter but cannot be thought of as a major player on the album.The following two tracks ‘Carries On’ and ‘Jade’ are two of the major tracks in bringing the record down. It’s happy music for boring people, kind of bumbling along with nonsensical lyrics about love.Track six ‘ Home’ is easily the best song on the record, and it seems quite boggling that it is placed amongst such damp and dreary surroundings. It is a fun, simple and massively catchy effort that really shines out.
It is the next track ‘Desert Song’ that the lo-fi, hippie tinge of MGMT can really be heard, or at least the psychedelic skin the band have since shelled. ‘Black Water’ is lyrically interesting but as a result of it’s slow paced nature fails to offer any hook. This leads into the endlessly repetitive ‘Come In Please’ that has vocalist Alex Ebot sounding not a million miles away from Scissor sisters very own Jake Sheers. ‘Simplest Love’ fails to heighten the mood of the album and is in truth, unspeakably dull. By this point on the record you question whether new depths could be reached. A resounding yes comes in the shape of ‘Kisses Over Babylon’. A song sung in Spanish with the most excruciatingly painful accent that would only result in eternal expulsion from any department of modern languages.
‘Brother’ is finally something salvageable from the latter part of the album. A far less cluttered effort that drags the whole record in a new direction. The lyrics are soulful and heartbreaking in equal measure, and combined with a skilfully beautiful guitar melody results in a really brilliant track. ‘Om Nashi Me’ sees the album out, concluding the album well with a smooth if senseless variation of melodies. Some faith is rekindled in the band but you just wish they had kept it this simple throughout.
The album could be good even though it falls short in many areas. It’s the haphazard nature of the album that they have strived for, that has ultimately cost them. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros appear to mould themselves on a psychedelic image that in turn restricts them. When the ten piece let go, and concentrate more on the important aspects of they’re music, they really do shine all manner of bright and shiny colours. There are certainly diamonds in the rough within the record, but as they revolt against clinical production, they would do well to remember that without top quality material, you are off to a loser.
