Local Natives' 2010 debut, Gorilla Manor, was fully-formed and immediately pleasing, functioning at a level that lesser acts spend entire careers trying to reach. But it had a certain youthful scrappiness, too. Alongside expansive tracks like "Shape Shifter" and "Wide Eyes", there were the silly howls that introduced "Airplanes" and the shouty breakdown of "Sun Hands", both of which brought comparisons to Animal Collective. All told, it was very of-the-moment with influences to match. Guitarist/singer Taylor Rice cited Broken Social Scene in an interview around the time of the album's release, and anyone following along with big-tent indie rock could pick up on other borrowed elements: Grizzly Bear's choirboy sway, the National's starched-shirt seriousness, Fleet Foxes' rolling melodicism. But while the songwriting was strong, you had to wonder if the band would prove to be more than the sum of their influences.
Hummingbird, Local Natives' second album, offers a tricky answer to that question. They're still on the same path-- no fashionable synths or newfound fixation with 1990s R&B here-- but innovation seems beside the point. This is a record of lateral growth, one that finds the band establishing their own place among their contemporaries. Ironically, they've found their sound with the assistance of one of their major forebears: the National's Aaron Dessner performs and contributes songwriting on Hummingbird, and shares production credit with the band while recording with them in his Brooklyn studio. (His brother and bandmate, Bryce, contributed horn arrangements to several songs, too.)
As with member-cum-producers Death Cab for Cutie's Chris Walla and TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek, Dessner's production style isn't terribly distinctive. But he knows how to make things sound good, and there's plenty of richness and depth to these songs. Bassist Andy Hamm left Local Natives in 2011, leaving Local Natives as a quartet; on Hummingbird, Aaron Dessner acts as fifth band member of the group.
In our interview with the band last year, they described the split with Hamm as "heartbreaking," and it wasn't the only loss suffered following Gorilla Manor's release: lead vocalist Kelcey Ayer's mother passed away last summer. Accordingly, the brightness and boisterousness of Gorilla Manor is mostly absent. Advance track "Breakers" is a pulsating rush of drum fills and "ooh"s that deflates to nearly nothing just as the wordless hook begins to sink in. There are other ominous touches: the tangled vocal ascent of "You & I", "Black Spot"'s closing instrumental tumble, the static laden "Wooly Mammoth", one of many cuts that showcases drummer Matt Frazier's knack for creating expressive, overwhelming washes of rhythm. Lyrics convey the anxiety and depressed confusion. Where Gorilla Manor tried to capture the feeling of twentysomething malaise ("Water's in the clouds/ Is my life about to change?/ Who knows?/ Who cares?"); here words are more vivid, conveying scenes of hopelessness and the feeling that everyone you know around you is slowly becoming a stranger.
Lyrically, they're best when they're at their most direct. "Colombia"'s beautiful swell takes syncopated bass and stately piano and grows into something warm and emotionally cathartic. Vocally, Ayer takes a lilting upper register, leaning into it more and more as his lonely voice turns pleading while addressing his deceased mother: "If you never felt all of my love/ I pray now you do". On an album that spans a wide range of emotions, "Colombia" is Hummingbird's most affecting moment; it's also one of the best songs the band's ever written.
Although there are a number of fine uptempo songs, Hummingbird's strongest moments are the quiet, elegiac cuts similar to "Colombia": the brief, sweetly sung "Ceilings", the skyward wails of "Three Months", Ayer's simmering solo take on the verses of "Heavy Feet". Subtlety is key, and Hummingbird is nothing if not subtle. There's nothing as melodic as "Airplanes" or "World News" on here, but this isn't a bad thing. With Hummingbird, Local Natives have made a thoughtful, lovely album with small gestures that provide great rewards.
