Up-and-coming songwriters wanting to make a Big Art-Rock Album with broad appeal are faced with a number of quandaries, apart from how to get the 12-piece synthesizer rig into the tour van. How to balance grandiosity and chops with catchiness? It's no easy task: The four-plus decades after Procol Harum and Soft Machine are littered with countless failed attempts to merge pomp and pop. But it's one that Copenhagen group Choir of Young Believers are up to on their second LP, Rhine Gold, a hook-laden prog-pop opus for indie rock's post-"Holocene" moment. Sure, they may have a moniker seemingly derived from a Sufjan Stevens band name generator and a swollen lineup that necessitates two adjoining tables at between-gig truck stops. But they've created a set of songs that successfully bridges whatever currently falls under the heading of "post rock" with the flanneliest of the past five years of American indie, and doesn't take itself too seriously along the way.
I'm speculating here, but it seems obvious to me that singer and songwriter Jannis Noya Makrigiannis starts his process by writing straightforward melodies, then stretches them out with brief detours and production flourishes without abandoning the simple core idea. On the gently psychedelic highlight "Sedated", for instance, a punchy, taut bassline and clip-clopping percussion are overlaid with a lead guitar line and vocal that gently ripple like sheets on a clothesline. This gives way to the hook: a gently eerie thing in which Makrigiannis floats above it all, gently buffeted by staccato piano plinks, before a quick string stab segues us back to do it all over again. You only have to listen once to understand this, but it ends with one of the more well-earned thunderclap sound effects you're bound to hear this year. Trust me: If you loved Midlake's "Roscoe" and Yeasayer's "2080", go ahead and drag this one to your "best of 2012" playlist.
In the context of the album, "Sedated" comes right after the slick "Patricia's Thirst", which both shows CYB's range and solidifies their recognizable sound. The spooky, quasi-Orientalist synth lines are uncanny-valley early MTV (not unlike those of the band's Ghostly International peers School of Seven Bells), but then Makrigiannis' soft tenor pilots the refrain heavenward again. It's a wonderful, perfectly executed pop moment that still manages to sneak up on me every time. Moments like these are in no short supply on Rhine, which is both exquisitely produced and has personality to spare. If you hear "Paralyze" and assume it's locking into the umpteenth motorik rehash, stick around for a few minutes (you do have 10 minutes, after all) as the band playfully tweaks the form a few times. I don't think I've ever heard a band successfully rev back onto the Autobahn quite like this.
Speaking of tweaking recognizable ideas, there's the matter of Makrigiannis' singing voice. It's a boyish, woodstained yowl that instantly suggests Ben Bridwell and Jim James, particularly when he lets it loose, which he does fairly often. As a result, about a third of Rhine Gold sounds pretty damn American, in the best possible way. The late-album one-two punch of "Nye Nummer Et" and "Paint New Horrors" surround the sepia-toned expansiveness of "The Funeral" and "Wordless Chorus" with sighing strings and off-kilter arrangements to great effect. Album opener "The Third Time" slowly takes shape over the first minute and a half of Rhine like a time-lapse sunrise rising through two mountain peaks, and when I initially heard Makrigiannis' voice appear without knowing his Danish address, I hurriedly typed down "Americana Sigur Rós." Copenhagen is separated from Reykjavik by about 1,300 miles of chilly sea, but like their Hopelandish bretheren, Choir of Young Believers have created a singular sonic world all their own. They don't let you get comfortable for too long at a stretch, but their itchy curiosity is its own reward.
