REVIEW: Push Kings, Far Places (Sealed Fate)
- Chelsea Spear
Early last year, the Push Kings released their first album, a debut filled with melodic songwriting and Carnaby Street style. True, their songs paid tribute to favourite albums in their collection as opposed to helping them sharpen their approach and find their own musical style, but the guys had energy and pop smarts with which to engage an audience.
I bring this up not as some form of indie-pop history lesson, but as Exhibit A in examining the new album by Boston's Crown Princes of Pop, Far Places. The melodies you grew to love on their previous creative output are in full abundance here, but there's not much to recommend it beyond that.
Okay, the songs are here too, but not in as full force as the band's last album. Three slices of teenage symphonies to girls and candy stand out on their own beneath the layers of production and stylistic overload -- a far cry from the first album, where every song was a keeper. Beyond that, there are some good ideas that aren't explored far enough or meanderings that just don't work, like the ditty with an extended electronica noodling.
The most disturbing thing Far Places reveals is that the Push Kings still haven't developed their own style. While I was listening to this record, I kept wondering: if you took away the band's record collection, stripped them of their mod garb and left them on a desert island with nothing more than their love of music and desire to play, what would they sound like? I don't think even they have an answer to that question.
What's more, this album offers evidence that the band views artistic evolution as changing the era of emulation from album to album. The first album tipped its hat to the mod era, conjuring up an image of what would happen if Herman's Hermits were the house band in the movie Blow-Up!. Far Places finds the band trying a new decade on for size by aligning their sound with Motown soul and the teen-angel croonings of David Cassidy. Their connection with Motor City soul feels forced and smacks of derivation. The band's output has been nothing if not derivative, but listeners got the feeling with the previous releases that the band had a real affinity for mod pop and shuffley Pavement rock. The soulful approach in particular feels less like an honest passion and more like another stylistic disguise to hide behind.
On their previous releases, Eric Masunage proved an adept hand at production with an appealing, back-to-basics approach. Unfortunately, he takes a confusing, cluttered approach to Far Places. Bizarre instrumentation and other elements fight for space, and the overall effect leaves the listener dizzy and a little confused.
The real kicker with this is that the band released a 7" single, presumably from the same sessions. The difference between the songs that appear on the single, while not a drastic, night-and-day dissimilarity, offer an interesting contrast. "Blowin' Up!" finds the band stripped of the cramped production, playing two simple pop songs and letting the energy come out. While the songs seem like tunes that didn't make it to the recording sessions of the previous PKs effort, this is what I enjoy listening to when I throw on an album by the band.
All in all, the Push Kings' melodic tunes would be a feather in anyone else's cap. On Far Places, excessive production and their own affectations overshadow what they could be doing. Though I loved the debut, I can't say I particularly like the places they're taking themselves in on this record. I hope the third album by these occasionally infectious popsters finds them cutting back on the frills and coming into their own.
