Architecture In Helsinki - Moment Bends - Printable Version +- Music Discussion (https://www.music-discussion.com) +-- Forum: Music Discussion (https://www.music-discussion.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=4) +--- Forum: Alternative (https://www.music-discussion.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=11) +--- Thread: Architecture In Helsinki - Moment Bends (/showthread.php?tid=5029)

Architecture In Helsinki - Moment Bends - Music Head - 06-05-2011 too much electronic for me Aqua anyone? not that predictable, but close Grade - 1.3 released May 3rd, 2011 from the album - Contact High - 1.0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxjcszKEcHE from all music Bio The Australian indie pop ensemble Architecture in Helsinki hail from Fitzroy, Melbourne, and have counted multi-instrumentalists Cameron Bird, James Cecil, Gus Franklin, Isobel Knowles, Jamie Mildren, Sam Perry, Tara Shackell, and Kellie Sutherland among their ranks. The band's musical arsenal is even bigger than its roster, featuring instruments as diverse as analog synths and samplers, glockenspiel, tuba, clarinet, and recorder along with the more predictable drums, bass, and guitar. Architecture in Helsinki began playing in 2000, crafting a mix of indie, electronic, and pop that they recorded and occasionally performed live. The collective began recording its debut album, Fingers Crossed, in 2002 in a variety of places ranging from beach houses to proper studios; Bar/None released the album in spring 2004. Following a hectic year of touring and recording, the group turned around another album, In Case We Die, in 2005. The release drew glowing reviews, fixing Architecture in Helsinki as one of that year's most promising and idiosyncratic indie acts. Frontman and primary songwriter Bird relocated to Brooklyn a year later, where he and producer James Cecil put the finishing touches on the group's third effort, Places Like This. The album was released on Polyvinyl in 2007. Bird returned to Australia and the group, now a quintet including Perry, Mildren, Sutherland, and Franklin, released the That Beep single in 2008. They recorded their fourth album in their studio, Buckingham Palace, over the course of two years. The result was Moment Bends, which was released in early 2011. Album Review It took Architecture in Helsinki a while to follow up Places Like This, which they had recorded with founder Cameron Bird in Brooklyn and the rest of the group scattered across the globe. All the bandmembers reconvened in Australia to make Moment Bends, and it’s hard not to think that this is a large part of why they sound much more focused than they did before. The 2008 single “That Beep” -- which they recorded during the two years they holed up in their studio, Buckingham Palace, making this album -- suggested that Architecture in Helsinki were back to their usual bouncy and irrepressible selves with a veneer of sleek synth pop. Moment Bends makes good on the single’s promise, with Architecture in Helsinki moving forward by looking back -- not only to their own skills with hooks and melodies, but to ‘80s synth pop too. “Desert Island” captures the album’s feel, its artificial tropical paradise coming across like a strange but appealing hybrid of Wham! and Matthew Wilder's “Break My Stride.” It also features some of Bird's finest singing to date, falling somewhere in between his earlier wispy vocals and his forced throatiness on Places Like This. Indeed, much of Moment Bends finds the band discovering a happy medium between its old and new sounds, as on “Everything’s Blue,” which tempers Places Like This' attempts at funk with a fresher and more natural approach. Architecture in Helsinki don’t so much borrow from the ‘80s as they embody them, whether on “Denial Style”'s Paisley Park pop or “Contact High” and “Sleep Talkin”'s lightly soulful, Culture Club-like approach. At times, the pristine sonics overwhelm the actual songs, and the lone ballad “B4 3D” closes the album on a slightly anticlimactic note, but overall Moment Bends is a return to form, if not quite as inspired as Architecture in Helsinki's best moments. Track Listing 1 Escapee 2 Contact High 3 W.O.W 4 Sleep Talkin' 5 Yr Go To 6 That Beep 7 Denial Style 8 Everything's Blue 9 Desert Island 10 I Know Deep Down 11 Out Of Focus 12 B4 3D