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Virtual Love
80s New Wave pastiche vocals and production are more effective than one might think when contemplating this sprawling project, with its college-rock titles and stream-of-consciousness lyrics. Lake Michigans guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Doug Hamilton and vocalist Johanna Blanchard have followed up their 2002 debut, Deformity Follows Dysfunction, with what amounts to two nine-song albums, divided by the band into a first and second side. Yet in truth, Virtual Love divides itself quite differently: its a very bad album inside a very good one. It starts strongly with Observing I, Observe Thyself; discordant guitars and walls of feedback introduce us to the landscape where well find ourselves for the next hour. The old-school dance beats and crunching guitars of Whats it to Ya? point to an interesting fact: Blanchards crucially unschooled vocals lend an amateur air to the overall impression of highly enjoyable art-school wankery when it works. (When it doesnt, it sounds like pretentious garage crap.) The smart balance of Recurrence 28, dreamy vocals and uncontrolled guitar, make the song a standout, a post-apocalyptic teen-pregnancy fantasy full of clang and fire and unafraid to spread itself out. Virtual Love is the exception to the curse of the albums middle half. Some of the most powerful lyrics on the album and brilliantly-done verses dont make the frequent breakdowns and structural pauses of this song less boring; its all effects and disingenuous repetition. Like the album itself, this is a Cadbury egg: beautiful verses held captive by an irritating, unpolished chorus. While often melodic, the paint-by-numbers nature of these middle songs from math-rock joke All Roads Lead To Rome to mid-90s pastiche Blessed With Mortality range from supremely irritating (a song about Manson?) to virtually unlistenable. The label-recommended Ginseng is angular and unbalanced, but ultimately not compelling, while Never Odd or Even and Assume the Worst build slowly to a wasteful nothing at all. Theres something fishy going on when one of the best tracks on a quintessential college-rock album like this is titled something such as Self-Medication. The same conventional wisdom that would correctly suggest an eighteen-song, hour-long opus might serve as an opportunity to learn about self-editing and the dangers of self-indulgence is wrong about this particular one: Self-Medication is a jewel. It also leads into the enjoyable and smart final quarter, a booming and aggressive collection of mixing tricks, heavy and flexible guitars, and other happy surprises. But then if youre still listening by this point, youve earned it.
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