Staying the Course

Most bands don’t really evolve in a true sense. Bands may change and modify their sound over the ages but more often than not, their sound fails to push forward or challenge any notion of what they were at the outset. While pushing boundaries isn’t a problem for experimental bands, they tend to suffer from the same inability to break out of the mold they created with their first album. On Obey, Exploded View suffers this very same fate, though the album itself is no less impressive than much of their previous work.

Fans of the band won’t find anything terribly challenging about this recent offering, though they will certainly find something to enjoy. Opening track “Lullaby” begins the record with a fairly straightforward drone. It combines that experimental heart with a very folky tilt. The vocals on the track are, well, a lullaby, as one would expect given the title, and the overall sound is more than enough to make listeners feel deeply uncomfortable. The follow up “Open Road” shows more promise, though the vocals fall short of the burbling spine of the track. The title track “Obey” is a clear standout and is perhaps the only track where the band shows signs of pushing their sound forward. Bubbling synths sweep the back end of the track in an undulating pattern until the midpoint of the track’s runtime. At that point, the song goes completely ballistic. What was once a foreboding synth takes on an element of fury and intensity that had, up until now, been lacking in the album. The hypnotic buzz is almost reminiscent of tracks from EDM artists like Rezz or Space Jesus, making for a truly interesting and deeply unsettling combination of sounds.

After “Obey,” the album has a few standouts. “Sleepers” has a foreboding high synth whine layered beneath more airy vocals than usual, leading to a much more poppy experience when compared to the rest of the record. “Raven Raven” actually brings to mind certain elements of Gorillaz with its poppy background and bass-laden groove, and “Come on Honey” has fierce enough guitars that it calls to mind Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine and even Big Black at times.

Yet all in all, this album doesn’t ever reach the heights it seems capable of. Here and there are glimpses of greatness and a sense that the record could have been something that really pushed the band forward. But a set of weaker opening tracks and a range of far too bland songs populating the dead spaces of the record makes for a very safe experience, strange as that may seem to say about a record from Exploded View.