Over their first five albums, Adam Pierce's Mice Parade maintained an almost unnerving consistency. Not only are these records roughly comparable in terms of quality, but across any individual album few tracks stand out as failures, just as few are so great they dwarf the music surrounding them. The Mice Parade sound-- a mixture of ringing acoustic guitars layered in Reichian fashion, kinetic drumming, vibes, and assorted non-Western instruments for flavoring-- has in a sense been immune to composition. No matter how Pierce stretches and shapes the pieces, it always sounds like Mice Parade and it always sounds good. Recommending this band to somebody has always been cake: Just pick one of the first five records at random and, if you like it, keep exploring from there.
I wouldn't tell them to pick up the sixth album, however. In a sense Bem-Vinda Vontade is easily comparable to its predecessors, with the same instruments beautifully recorded and repetitive songs that swell and contract horizontally rather than using chords to develop. But Bem-Vinda Vontade expands on the use of voice introduced in 2004 on Obrigado Saudade to the point where singing now a centerpiece of the sound. And the vocals, mostly by Pierce and Kristín Anna Valt\xFDsdótti (of Múm), are sure to be divisive.
I know Múm's more song-oriented direction has its fans, but for my part Valt\xFDsdótti's singing is completely unlistenable, a tuneless whisper/shriek that seems to exist only as a twee placeholder without having any content on its own. When she comes in on "Night's Wave" and "The Boat Room" she completely pulls me out of whatever reverie the music inspires. Here is an example of when indie's DIY inclusiveness goes too far.
Pierce's singing is spotty but sometimes works. He's only got a few notes to choose from, so the main problem is that pickings are so slim in terms of melody. He duets with Valt\xFDsdótti on "Night's Wave" and the music is actually quite good, a thick acoustic stew with furiously strummed guitars, accordion, and Doug Scharin's ever-propulsive drumming, but the actual tune is no match for what surrounds it. But then "Night's Wave" ends as Dylan Christie's gorgeous cloud of vibes span the threshold to "Passing and Galloping" (as ever, the editing is excellent as one song into the next) and all of a sudden Pierce's vocals fit. The music on "Passing and Galloping" is just a shoegazy overdriven guitar atop a bed of endless tom rolls and Pierce's simple vocal lament is an effectively gentle contrast.
Nothing wrong with formerly instrumental bands wanting to experiment with songs but it makes sense to recruit singers and songwriters that approach the skill of the music that surrounds them. So much of Bem-Vinda Vontade sounds so nice, with guitar and drum textures as lovely as anything the band has attempted. But the singing seems tacked on and the music suffers, resulting in Mice Parade's least consistent album.
