Up from Below (2009)
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes
Impression published on Monday, 2009-12-28 | Album | 2 stars
While it's true that the boilerplate copy for this record reads like a Personals add seeking professional music critics ("10-piece West Coast 'jug-band' of multi-instrumentalists seeks earnest, turtle-neck wearing 40-something to apply adjectives such as 'simple', 'honest' and 'direct' to well-produced album of folksy, Christian sing-along songs about heterosexual romance featuring multiple lead singers where necessary and choirs wherever possible"), there is actually an album worth talking about in the case of Edward Sharpe's Up from Below.
It is, of course, impossible to recommend this album whole-heartedly and unreservedly on account of a.) its tendency to stupidly lapse into tired, lost-and-found religious imagery in a lame attempt to force a kind of "roots" or "kitsch" aesthetic (think of how Urban Outfitters used to stock those red velvet Jesuses in all of its stores; or think of how hipsters hang Warner Sallman paintings in their lavatories), b.) its dopey vacillation between giddy sing-alongs and droning romantic melancholy and c.) its annoying virtuo performances and scruffily authentic production values, but it is equally impossible (for the above reasons) to rule it out completely. This is a record with enough surprises and variety among its songs to make it worth a few spins: I've had it on my Sansa for a few weeks now and I'm still not totally sick of it.
So, in the final estimation, this record isn't what you heard that it was: it is simultaneously less (innovative) and more (interesting) than the whip-smart indie darling that the turtle necks told you that it was.
