There are bands who arrive fully formed and there are those who take a little while to find their footing. Sometimes all it takes is one song. In the case of Baltimore's Lower Dens, who are fronted by onetime folk eccentric Jana Hunter, that track was "Brains". Released in advance of this record, the single added krautrock and electronic touches to the group's signature guitar swirl and suggested a new dimension and a new confidence. Everything hit with more impact: the drumming was crisper, Hunter's singing was richer and more evocative, and there was an extra layer of prettiness, but also menace. The message seemed to be, "Here's a band you can't ignore anymore."
Nootropics strengthens that argument, building on the promise of "Brains" and vastly widening the band's sonic palette. Richly detailed, dark, and ethereal, the album is a feast for sound-first listeners drawn to expressive shifts in color and tone. To suggest that it's a creative step forward for Lower Dens is not to knock their 2010 debut, Twin-Hand Movement, which was a fine album but pretty specific in its appeal. (A moody nighttime listen, ideal for a 2 a.m. drive home by yourself or a late-night glass of whisky.) Nootropics is at once more inclusive and varied, though. And the band achieves this by pulling a clever trick: taking some of the most well-loved elements of the rock canon and making them their own.
"I listened to Radioactivity by Kraftwerk pretty much constantly while writing this record, and... we listened to a lot of Eno and Fripp and the Iggy Pop record that David Bowie produced," Hunter said in an interview. And you can certainly hear those influences at play. Robotic synths, ambient drift, stark percussion-- many of the touchstones of 1977 art rock are on display in tracks like "Lamb" and "Candy". It doesn't feel like by-the-numbers mixtape-ism, though, partly because Hunter's singing is too dynamic to allow for that. Her androgynous voice can be airy and lilting or times throaty and masculine, and it lends an eerie otherness to the songs. Even when backed by a simple motorik bassline, Hunter sounds beamed-in from somewhere else.
This is one of those albums that creates its own little sound world, and a lot of its appeal has to do with qualities like texture and atmosphere. These are terms so overused in music writing that they've nearly lost their meaning, but here they're important. Take for example the very tactile percussion of "Alphabet Song". Snares and cymbals click-click-click like someone with long, fake fingernails tapping on a car window. Or go back to "Brains", which does an excellent job of building tension and transferring energy with those outward-spinning guitars. For a while they kind of chime in place, but then right before the chorus hits, they step down an octave and there's an exhale. The mood changes and takes you along with it.
With so much attention on the sonics it can be easy to ignore the words, and actually I'd say the lyrical content is the record's least interesting aspect. In that same interview from above, Hunter discussed the subject matter, going into some heady stuff about Dada and transhumanism and "denying our animal selves." I'm not sure what she meant, and I'm not sure that it matters. This isn't an album about a specific narrative, it's about sounds and colors and the way a synth tone or cryptic string of words hits you and makes you feel something. When the guitars are chugging and the drums are crackling and Hunter sings, "When I finally let my guard down, I was in the middle of the sea and drowning," I don't know what she means exactly, but it gives me goosebumps. Every time.
