The Elected - Sun, Sun,Sun

Wed 8th Feb, 2006 in Music Reviews

The Elected certainly deserve their place in the Sub Pop family.  Adhering closely to the formula laid out by label mates The Shins, their sophomore release Sun, Sun, Sun achieves similar success through its dense layers of melody and slight alt-country tinges.  Producing just the right combination of whimsy and wistfulness, heartwarming and heartbreaking, the band has created an album about the journey – whether that may be leaving home for the first time or simply the voyage through life itself. 

Youthful experience and expectation are the key factors drawn upon by songwriter Blake Sennett (perhaps better known for his other band, Rilo Kiley).  He approaches his subjects with tenderness and a kind of gentle wisdom – in many tracks there is a kind of dichotomy between the naiveté of the character and the newfound maturity of the narrator.  Fireflies in a Steel Mill is a playful track about running away and coming home again.  Sennett frames a sentiment delightfully:

That’s what we are
We’re like the places you just never see
You’d read about them, you know you’d love them
That’s how you fell in love with me

Its understated horns and happy-sad lyrics are bittersweet and there are traces of seventies power-popsters The Raspberries as the song rocks up a little in the third verse.

The two highlight tracks on this album are placed back-to-back.  It Was Love, with its gorgeous layers of piano, steel guitar and accordion, is a perfect, heartfelt pop song.  The softly spoken vocals of Sennett and Mike Bloom lend the track a beautiful sincerity and it features the lyrical refrain that perhaps best sums up the album:

We had some love and some hope
A full tank of gas and a wide-open road
It was love to us, it was all that we had

Just as it seems that Sun, Sun, Sun has reached the peak of its powers, along comes the so-quiet-it’s-barely-there title track.  Featuring just fingerpicking guitar, tinkering piano and Sennett’s pleading vocals, it recalls the bedroom-studio intimacy of Ryland Bouchard (The Robot Ate Me).  Swearing has not sounded so sweet since Elliott Smith as Sennett laments, ‘I hate being fucking patient.’ 

Sadly, The Elected are unable to maintain the lofty standards set by these two songs.  Did Me Good is an admirable, though perhaps misguided, attempt to inject a sixties pop sentiment into their sound.  While the band’s signature quirks – smooth harmonies and subtle guitar licks – shine, Sennett’s attempt to give his vocals greater character ultimately appear more contrived than novel.  However, the song’s solid foundations carry it over the line and, vocal experimentation aside, it is certainly a worthy inclusion.

Beautiful Rainbow borders on twee, with lyrics so sweet they’re almost saccharine: 

And if the sky filled up with clouds of doom
And the whole world was ending soon
Well, I just couldn’t get scared ‘cause I’d have my rainbow
And I’d see her shining right through 

Luckily for Sennett, his sheer sincerity allows him to get away with such sticky sentimentality and the track is certainly among the prettiest on the album. 

Closer At Home (Time Unknown) mirrors opening track Clouds Parting (8:14 AM), utilising the same four lines of lyrics but with different accompaniments.  The former features just Blake Sennett on ukulele and vocals while the latter is a choral arrangement, complete with harp.  Though each song goes for only forty seconds, they make ideal bookends to the album and the repetition brings Sun, Sun, Sun to an ideal, cohesive close. 

Here, The Elected has produced a very nice album.  And ‘nice’ albums are often the hardest to write about.  Its best songs are brilliant.  Its worst are simply mediocre.  It has more strong tracks than weak ones.  The instrumentation is experimental and successful.  The songwriting is excellent.  Yet this is an album which, in order to best enjoy, requires some use of the skip button.  Or perhaps it simply requires more time to grow on the listener.  However, one thing is for sure – Sun, Sun, Sun deserves to be heard.  It may not be the album of the year but it is nevertheless a rewarding, and often quite beautiful, listen.