"Trepidation is what you get when you're overly anxious and uncomfortable with your current surroundings." That hesitant sentiment opens the appropriately titled "Trepidation, Pt. 2", and one could assume it reflects Ryan McPhun's wobbly, feet-finding journey through New Zealand after relocating from Los Angeles. Well, despite initial signals to the contrary, the Ruby Suns' debut record is equally cautious. McPhun's affection for post-Pet Sounds Beach Boys arrangements is clear throughout-- delicate harmonies express optimism and doubt in equal measures, meter changes play tag with exotic instrumentation-- yet the pieces, while enjoyable, never congeal into something greater. Instead, they simply relax in a sunny, complacent haze.
The equivalent of two short prologues open the record, forcing me to double-and-triple-check that my iTunes wasn't set to shuffle, and that I wasn't hearing out-of-sequence connecting tracks. "Trees Like Kids" is a pleasant bit of a cappella whimsy, and would be a fine opener on its own, but it segues into "Sleep in the Garden", which at first suggests the Suns' own heavenly pop hit, but wilts less than two minutes later.
"Maasai Mara" is a Gruff Rhys-style cartoon pastiche about a Kenyan zebra named Ulysses, delivered with the melodramatic stop/start dynamic of Pet Sounds' "Here Today". There's a message, though: Ulysses is captured by an exploitative businessman, and is forced to resume his existence while being consistently poked with a stick. Though it marks the peak of the album's early trend toward cloying cuteness, the track gives way to a satisfying mid-record trifecta that shows how McPhun's tendency toward daftness can sound when properly channeled. "Look Out SOS!" is structured by the lovely, cyclical guitar figure from Buddy Holly's "Words of Love" (more specifically, George Harrison's Beatles for Sale version) and Hal Blaine-style percussion. Then, after the Sean O'Hagan-modeled "Function of the Sun", comes the spaced-out orchestration and dramatic tympani flourishes of "It's Hard to Let You Know". It's the record's prettiest song, and not coincidentally the moment when McPhun displays the affective potency of his naïveté, and not just its cartoonish potential.
Both McPhun's move from L.A. to Auckland and his first full-length record seem aimed toward finding a satisfying middle ground between escapism and familiarity. Especially in the dead of winter, New Zealand seems like the perfect realization of his California dreamin'-- all the sunny exoticism without the smoggy skies and ubiquitous careerism. "My Ten Years on Auto-Pilot" certainly supports this assertion, and suggests that the most fitting analogue for The Ruby Suns might be Grandaddy's Sumday, where the unfulfilled IT drones break their USB tethers and wander awkwardly into the great outdoors. In this light, the last lyric of "Pilot" sounds like the nightmarish opposite of McPhun's musical fantasy: "Hi my name is Tim/ I work on floor 27, office 401/ The phone, tie, and business smile/ I'm happy, can't you tell?" He certainly makes it clear that he's no Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, but The Ruby Suns is only one step toward a confident new persona.
