The boundaries of Birmingham, Ala., foursome Wild Sweet Orange are decidedly populist-- strains of Coldplay's paradoxically epic modesty, the rootsy instrumentation of a Merge Records hopeful, and lyrical confessionals both church and Dashboard. At one point, I believe this approach might've been called "college rock," and though Wheat's cruelly overlooked Per Second, Per Second, Per Second... Every Second is a precedent, this sort of alchemy can still sound novel-- particularly since Wheat all but gave up on it by their next record.
Wild Sweet Orange appear to be on their way to greater success, if only because they recognize the signs of the times-- that the ability to sound bummed over soaring arrangements for twenty seconds at a time can be more beneficial than a way with a melodic hook (and you wonder why people resent the fact that they don't make 'em like "Hey Jealousy" anymore-- it did both). And believe you me, lead singer Preston Lovinggood (real name, no gimmicks) is one dark dude. By the first track, a Mobius strip melody details him keeled over the toilet bowl, paralyzed by the sight of "Ten Dead Dogs" on the way to his girlfriend's house. The tempo is laconic, but the playing still feels tightly coiled and menacing, a double-time guitar thrum hinting at a catharsis that isn't achieved until the following "Tilt", where Lovinggood bursts into let 'er rip caterwauls reminiscent of any number of Buckley disciples, his voice showing endearing cracks amidst an appositely tepid alt-rock strum. And right at that moment, it introduces a problem that ultimately submarines Uneasy, namely that it's so eager to please that it forgets to risk anything, so as to be actively likable as opposed to merely pleasant.
Thanks to the blue state-heavy geography of modern rock, it's tempting to project some sort of Birmingham-specific attributes to Wild Sweet Orange, but it's not exactly a perfect fit, since the only real evidence of protruding Southern influence is in how the songs are coated in a Nashville glaze as thick as any countrypolitan record. At their most down-home ("An Atlas to Follow"), the springy vocal reverb and polite banjo has a latter-day M. Ward thing going on at best, and any attempt to kick up dust is promptly hosed down (the militant beat of "House of Regret" is strangely muted and the feedback never truly goes into the red).
Moreover, Uneasy sounds like a document of a band caught up in a fishbowl effect of becoming the hot band in a smaller metro area-- they've achieved a success that's allowed them to tour beyond their confines, but Wild Sweet Orange are way ahead of themselves in terms of MOR rainbow chasing. Though a bit embarrassing in their directness, "Seeing and Believing" and "Sour Milk", a long, ruminative recollection of divorce through a child's eyes, have the ability to hit at a gut level as a debut should. Instead, they get lost in arrangements that could be described as "tasteful," until you realize the production is flat and featureless-- beyond the fact that "Seeing" is one of those songs where you start off earmarking lyrics for later cliché exposure until you realize you'd have to quote everything, it's inaccurate to even call it a power ballad as the distorted guitars that come in during the inevitable climax sound sanded of all grit.
The three-song/seventeen-minute span that follows "An Atlas to Follow" finds Lovinggood taking the onus upon himself to sell Uneasy, and in a way, it resembles the pained, suburban laments of Twilight Sad-- nothing much happens, but there's a underlying tension that begs to be explored. But where the latter band's eruptive dynamics captured the hormonal rush of teenhood, "House of Regret" and "Crickets" (which coasts on intriguing delay effects for a minute before becoming far less interesting) mostly just recall the horizonless vistas one sees staring out the window during the stretches of I-20. By the time they finally reach closure with the puppy-dog pout of "Land of No Return" (yeah, it was on "Grey's Anatomy"), it's hardly a triumph so much as collapse from a long drive home-- simultaneous exhaustion and comfort. Still, if it catches on with the college kids this time of year, it wouldn't be surprising-- like all these incoming freshman, Wild Sweet Orange sound like they're willing to sort out the particulars of their own path provided they fit in first.
