Most post-rock albums, at some level be traced back to two seminal albums of the early 1990s. The first, Talk Talk’s 1991 full-length Laughing Stock, is a delicate record dominated by ambient sonic landscapes. The other, Slint’s 1991 LP Spiderland, is a more dramatic and angular work, incorporating sharp guitar interludes and interesting loud-soft dynamics.
So that bit of knowledge must make interpreting post-rock albums less difficult, right? Seemingly uninterpretable records like Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s 2000 double album Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven strays not too far from Slint’s proverbial tree, whereas an album like Gastr Del Sol’s Camoufleur can be tied back to Talk Talk. It should be that easy.
And sometimes, it does. Enter Chicago-based quartet Califone, whose sound gravitates heavily toward the Talk Talk side of that dialectic, emphasizing sonic texture over dynamism.
In a lot of ways, that creates a slew of problems. Most importantly, amid the atmospherics, it makes it far more difficult for the band to seem as though it has its own sound outside of nuances in the album’s production. To be fair, Califone do attempt to rectify this problem by integrating a strong blues-rock influence. I mean, when in Chicago, why not follow the rest of the music scene?
Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work. Recorded just months after 2003’s excellent Quicksand/Cradlesnakes, the band returns with Heron King Blues (Thrill Jockey). Unlike last year’s sublime full-length, however, Heron King Blues is an afterthought. Instead of differentiating the songs on the album, the band formulaically add blues-influenced guitar lines into almost all of the album’s songs. As a result, many of the songs sound the same and, not surprisingly, blend together.
An initial listen to the album demonstrates this shortcoming quite lucidly. The second track, “Trick Bird,” begins with a muted drum and some stray pluckings of a guitar as lead singer and guitarist Tim Rutili sings over a background of synthesized ambient tones and percussion instruments. The first time you hear it, it’s calming music. You think to yourself, “Why, this could be great music for relaxation.”
Then, two tracks later, “Apple” frustratingly begins with — surprise! — a muted drum and stray pluckings of a guitar that segues into — you guessed it — a synthesized background of ambient tones.
Other times, the band’s attempts at musical experimentalism backfire. Instead, the band sounds as though it were trying to find a great sound to replicate.
For instance, the album’s first track begins harmlessly enough, beginning with a twangy acoustic guitar as Rutili intones, “Fill my belly with your whispering.” The song’s melodic introduction, despite its silly lyrics, lulls the listener into a state of comfortable warmth.
But then the song abruptly transitions into the second verse, which, bizarrely, borrows liberally from the Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds-produced, Eric Clapton-performed 1996 summer-hit “Change the World.”
And just when you thought that was an isolated instance, Califone proves you wrong. The album’s sixth track, “2 Sisters Drunk On Each Other,” begins with an out-of-place drum beat that sounds exactly like the drum machine at the beginning of Nine Inch Nails’ 1994 single “Closer.”
Yet in general Heron King Blues is not a bad album. The title track, for example, is an upbeat instrumental piece in which Rutili’s guitar work plays in captivating contrast to a gliding bass. And on the aforementioned “2 Sisters,” the band redeems itself (to an extent) with an interesting coda replete with various horns.
That said, Califone are excellent, extremely talented muscians. Nevertheless, Blues demonstrates a band that seems more intent on instrumentalism rather than actual songwriting. Let’s hope that, on their next album, Califone emerge with a broader sense of focus.