Over their last few albums, Windsor for the Derby have traveled steadily further from their roots in 1990s post-rock and into the realm of melodic indie pop. Vocals went from being little smears in the mix to fully-formed, coherent carriers of melody and understandable lyrics, rhythms lost some of their krautrockiness, and they generally became a better band. As of their eighth LP, the band's always-fluctuating membership stands at five, with Jason McNeely and Dan Matz in the lead, as always.
They haven't totally abandoned their old post-rocking ways-- they're still as much about sound as they are about songs, and some of this record's inconsistency stems from relapses into meandering soundscapes, albeit mostly brief ones. Little ambient doodles like the mostly inert "Robin Robinette" and the disheveled-sounding "Troubles", which features guitar playing totally out of rhythm along with barely discernible mumble-singing, just don't fit anymore amidst cranking, memorable rock songs such as "Maladies" or "Fallen Off the Earth".
The first two thirds of the album are mostly filled with crisp songs. Opener "Let Go" rises from a placid tone pool into a moody, minimal number with floating, doubled vocals, fluttering organ figures, and a nice, clean guitar part-- it's supremely uncluttered and bodes well for the rest of the album. "Maladies" largely delivers on the promise with its thumping beat, good guitar riffs, and fantastic wordless chorus. "Hold On" and "Fallen Off the Earth" flow in a similar vein, falling back a bit more on the band's familiar motorik-derived sense of rhythm, while the nicely understated guitar-and-voice track "Forgotten" features possibly Windsor's best lyrics to date, with simple ruminations on being remembered and growing old.
Then there's the matter of the album's final third, which takes a headfirst dive into grainy shoegazer territory with little in the way of warning. Though "What We Want" is actually quite good, subsuming the noisy guitars in favor of organ and harmony vocals, it stills feels disjointed next to what comes before, and the other two closing songs aren't as memorable. Indeed, after years of indecision as to what kind of band they wanted to be, Windsor for the Derby seem to have finally opted against ever deciding. And that's really not a bad thing-- while it's not a masterpiece or terribly cohesive, How We Lost still manages to pack a lot of interesting and even excellent music into its 36 minutes.
