Literature are sort of asking for it with their name. The connotations are mostly stuffy, but it’s also a wink at the band’s relationship with the indie-pop canon they figure into. Their new album, Chorus, sounds like an English band emulating an American band around 1984; as it happens, Literature are actually four men from Philadelphia (including former Pitchfork contributor Kevin Attics). Their sound sums up so much history: the antsy enthusiasm of the Feelies, the twinkling tone of Johnny Marr’s guitar, the “Go on, then” romanticism of Buzzcocks. But instead of coming off as a retread of bands dead and gone, it charms with humor and heart—a record with feeling, even if it feels like something you already know.
Chorus is Literature's first LP recorded for indie powerhouse Slumberland, and accordingly they've cleaned up their act compared to their earlier recordings. The first iteration of their indisputably English-sounding “Tie Dye (Your Life)”, which was originally released as a 7” in 2013, sounded like it was ripped from a hand-me-down cassette; the re-recorded version that appears here is smoother without losing any energy and the instrumentation packs a proper wallop. The difference in fidelity is akin to hearing a song coming out of someone else’s car versus hearing it from your own stereo.
The uptick in sound quality is a lovely makeover, and accordingly Chorus is a lovely record. Listen to the way singer Nathan Cardaci’s voice stretches to cover the soaring melody on “The Girl, The Gold Watch, and Everything”, later switching between sigh and croon within the sentimental bloom of “Court/Date”. It’s as quick and sweet as a stolen kiss—just three songs pass the three-minute mark, and only one slows the pace from “nervous” to a swaying but still fairly lively “drunk”. Like Real Estate, their songs work with such a select number of jingly-jangly sounds that they risk approaching mere repetition, but Literature's approach comes across as a pointed tonal consistency. It’s not laziness that pushes them to look backwards, and so a lyric from “The English Soft Hearts” sums up Literature’s mantra: “Time I’ve got is fading faster/ Take me back I’ll hunt and gather”.
In some regards, it’s a little out-of-date to be a guitar band, but there are rewards to be found by mining the past. In seeking their answers from the indie rock firmament, Literature have found something freeing, as Chorus sounds surprisingly fresh. More importantly, it sounds like the record their previous recordings hinted that they wanted to make—a task that isn’t always easy when history's nipping at your heels.
