Grade: 82% (B-)
Conditions (2009) is the first studio album from
the Australian indie-rock group, The Temper Trap, coming three years after
their self titled EP. The first track,
“Love Lost”, breaks in the album slowly but surely as it gains momentum throughout
the song. Repeating chords with
Mandagi’s voice dominating the song can be used to describe almost every track,
“Love Lost” being no exception. The
synth work plays nicely against the guitar work but it is clear that the album
was based around Mandagi’s voice.
If you find
the third track on the album, “Sweet Disposition”, somewhat familiar, it’s
probably because you’ve seen the indie film (500)
Days of Summer. It’s in there. Twice. While this may be an attempt to get
every sixteen year-girl requesting the track on their local hit radio station,
it is still a good song. The lyrics seem
fitting for the aforementioned high school girls: “A moment, a love, a dream,
aloud, a kiss, a cry, our rights, our wrongs.”
This is not a
light and poppy record by any means.
Track names such as “Love Lost”, “Fools”, and “Science of Fear” convey
this perfectly. Besides perhaps “Sweet
Disposition”, there are no songs that make you want to sing along. Which is probably a good thing considering
the dark lyrics.
“Soldier On”,
the fifth track on the album is perhaps the best representation of the album as
a whole, and definitely the standout track.
It starts out slowly with guitar and Mandagi’s piercing voice. Soon after comes the deep underlying base
that continues throughout. Far from
cheerful, Mandagi sings about the downsides of relationships, warning “keep
your heart close to the ground”. With
two minutes to go, the song completely transforms into an epic power ballad
including a guitar slaying solo by Lorenzo Sillitto.
Conditions is a pretty good debut album, although
the band definitely showed signs of where they can improve. It would be nice to
see a track or two with a different style to it as most of the songs on the
record are very similar. Some acoustic
work would definitely do them some good, as it would add some desperately
needed diversity to the record.
The final song
on the album, appropriately titled “Drum Song”, is a daring conclusion. It is an instrumental that starts out with
pounding drums leading into echoing guitar.
Although the absence of Mandagi’s piercing voice is felt from the start,
it does not make the song any worse. Like
the entire album, the final track is the obvious of subtle. The track gave the rest of the band a chance
to show that they aren’t completely dependent on Mandagi’s voice.
The Temper
Trap’s second album is due out early to mid 2012.
great review. compelling and rich.
ReplyDelete