Big Stir 2024
When time collapses, acclaimed Los Angelenos take stock and make their flock rock – and roll with the punches.
Box Of Letters
This band didn’t really plan to suspend their trip back in 2002, only a few years after it had started and with merely two albums under the ensemble’s belt, yet shh happens to everybody. As a result, when the Californians reemerged with “Best Of Friends” in 2023, covering their associates’ material, the trio had a cache of songs squirreled away in the days of yore. They simply needed some time to flesh out the old pieces with fresh cuts and turn the stash into “Box Of Letters” to acknowledge the temporal shift between the tunes on offer. Not that the difference is in any way noticeable here – writing-wise, of course, because all the tracks are newly recorded, so there’s no performative variety involved, at least no more than a particular melody’s style may require. Still, such an extended span of the platter’s provenance should be factored in for better understanding of what’s going on over the course of the dozen recent entries in the collective’s discography.
And the goings-on feel plentiful from effervescently festive, optimistic opener “This Will Be Our Year” onwards, in a concept approximating the roll of calendar where honeyed harmonies on the likes of “I Can’t Wait For Summer” mark the run of seasons without trying to come across as overbearing. However, it’s the moments when, well, the sweetly ruminative “Where’s The Moment” advances the most captivating lyric – “We move or we die, yet here I sit, trying really hard to give a shit” – or, first and foremost, when the elegantly swaying “Princess Needy” transforms into blissed-out disco, that keep the listener satisfied. Relating to ordinary romance of the handclaps-helped “You Complete Me” and the new-wavey, six-string-searing “Love Burn” is, easy, even though Susan West’s vocals occasionally, and intentionally so, sound wide-eyed and childish to reflect girl-group-esque innocence in contrast to Michael Simmons’s maturely grounded delivery – and to offset the infectiously sharp riffs on “I’m Away From My Desk” and the title track, which are defiantly, if politely, in-your-face.
But when “Hey Grandma” segues from a cappella into bluesy heaviness to finish the album with a bout of groovy rapture, directed by Jamie Knight’s rumbling bass, all bets with regard to the band’s next endeavor are off. Except that it’s apt to be just as thrilling.
*****
