Available since 2004 in the UK, this album summarizes the spiritually
rooted, psychedelically expansive, electronically enhanced orchestral
sound of The Earlies, a bi-continental band with members in England and
Texas. The cuts here are varied, sharing a certain slow-paced,
inward-looking philosophical wonder, but differing in the instruments and
tones that express this overall mood. "One of Us Is Dead" ponders the
boundaries between this world and the next, moving from reality-grounded
verse toward transcendence as the song progresses. It opens with Brandon
Carr's cracked, vulnerable voice, observing a T-shirt inscribed with
the song title, then turns abstract with sampled preaching, choirs of
angels and, eventually, an electro-beat, drum-machine and synthetic-horn
interval. The barriers between observation and gnosis are fragile and
permeable, and even the simplest questions — e.g. whether one is dead or
alive
— have cosmic implications. "Wayward Song," adorned with bassoon notes,
piano motifs and surging strings, is grounded in chamber sounds, yet it too
swoops out of the ordinary in its layered harmonies and consideration of
spiritual issues.
The disc alternates between traditional songs and cuts that are
predominantly instrumentals. There's a lovely flute weaving in and out of
the sleighbell rhythms on "Slow Man's Dream," and "Morning Wonder," with its
droning drum machine and organ beat, is a highlight even before the hazy
vocals kick in about halfway through the track. "Lows," too, rises from
slow guitar tones to form a meditative groove, pulsing with keyboards,
punctuated by rim shots, evolving at a measured pace into something
wordless and wonderful. These cuts are just as good as the sung ones, and
indeed seem to lead to the same sort of calm, transcendental mindset
without the prodding of words.
The Earlies have been compared to lots of other bands — the Polyphonic
Spree for their choral exuberance, Mercury Rev for their psychedelic
adventurousness, Manitoba and Four Tet for their merger of pop and
electronic forms. What's impressive is the way they bring all these
elements together, the natural world leading seamlessly into a brighter
landscape of surreal otherness. In album closer "Dead Birds," we begin
with just voice and piano, naked and vulnerable, then rise through eddying
swirls of altered drums and choruses, then drift to earth again just as the
song closes. There's another world out there, The Earlies seem to say, and
you can go there any time you want.
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