album of the week: 8.1

Architecture in Helsinki

Moment Bends

(2011)

why you'll love it: AiH sort of(?) goes back to old style by being mellower.

why you'll hate it: Anything but innovative or stimulating music.

If you are a busy person, let me just save you the time. This album is terrible! I hate it. The only reason I'm reviewing it this week, is because it's one of the biggest disappointments in recent memory. I don't recommend it to anyone. From here on forward it's going to be all complaining, so read on at your own risk.

Three years ago I was convinced Architecture in Helsinki would be the next Talking Heads. Their 2007 album, Places Like This, alienated a lot of their original fans by ditching DIY twee for hi volume party pop. It only made me fall further in love with them. The songs of Places Like This are silly and over the top, but also wildly unpredictable from moment to moment. Their follow-up, tentatively titled Vision Revision, was teased to be around the corner for the next three years. The 2008 single, "That Beep" only made me salivate further for a new LP.

Something happened in between "That Beep" and this new album. Or maybe nothing happened at all. It feels a whole lot like nothing going on in this album. "That Beep" makes an appearance, and sticks out like a sore thumb amiss a crowd of pointless weak supermarket wishy-washy filler music. Considering how they made a name for themselves with originality, to put out music this bland is offensive.

Right off the first track you are met with cheap crappy synths. I asked myself "what is this? why?" right away, and hardly anything forward derailed me from that thought. Cameron is trying to sing like a normal person, which he just can't do. Nearly every song on here sounds like the demo button on a Casio keyboard. The voices never raise, the music fails to do anything interesting at all, and the lyrics are insultingly vague. Even the album cover is lousy glossy 80's minimalist pop art that fails to evoke anything.

Not every moment is total garbage, though. "Contact High" has a little bit of wackiness and some memorable bass sounds. It wouldn't have been a big splash on their last album, but is clearly the best new song on this one. "Escapee" has grown on me a bit. "Denial Style" would be alright, but it's got a real corny Cyndi Lauper like hook to it. The whole albium sounds like an 80's synthpop reject band that never even had a hit.

And that last track, "B43D" had me audibly saying "oh, just shut up" by the end, with its crappy fortune cookie lyrics and Boyz 2 Men delivery. I've heard MIDI files embedded into GeoCities sites that sounded better than most songs on this album. This is the worst thing I've heard all year.

Three years. Three years I've been waiting for this!

sigh.