Comprised of brothers Peter and David Brewis and abetted by a revolving cast of supporting players, Field Music have released five studio albums over the past decade, each of them distinguished by a kind of erudite pop sensibility that is largely kept at arm's length. Their last record wasn't a proper album at all, but rather a collection of covers imbued with their inimitable wiry energy. Listening to them reconfigure tracks by Roxy Music and the Pet Shop Boys—and somehow making an overly covered song like Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" sound weirdly alien—only proved how much Field Music operate on their own strange frequency. At their best, the experience of listening to Field Music is akin to moving into a beautifully designed house in which there are no right angles—everything just slightly and perfectly off.
Alternately slick and herky jerky in its delivery, Commontime, the band's sixth full-length*,* plays like post-punk Steely Dan—jazzy, elegant, and ultimately satisfying, but not always in the ways you expect or necessarily want. It opens with "The Noisy Days Are Over"—a slyly funky missive that both acknowledges and rejects the pains of growing older. "The noisy days are over/ And here we are instead," harmonize the brothers. "Why don't you go to bed like everybody else? Why don't you grow old like everybody else?" It's hard to know to whom exactly the two are singing—or if the song is somehow self-directed—but it introduces a sentiment that flourishes throughout Commontime. The album's 14 tracks function like bits of shared conversation, the brothers' interweaving voices shedding some of the obtuseness of earlier releases in favor of songs that openly address the perils of the everyday—the often mundane nature of relationships, the gravitational pull of childhood memories, and accepting one's own shortcomings.
Commontime is brimming with ideas, splitting the difference between the artful leanings of 2010's Measure and the more conventional post-punk pop immediacy of their 2005 debut. "Disappointed" ranks among the catchiest and most jubilant pop songs the band has ever recorded, even if the track itself is about managing one's expectations: "If you want this to be more/ Then you've got to let me know/ But if you want me to be right every time/ You're gonna be disappointed." The best songs here—"Don't You Know What's Wrong?," "The Morning Is Waiting," "How Should I Know If You've Changed?"—are both clever and refreshingly earnest, unafraid of shedding some of the band's now trademark ambiguity in favor of relatable feelings. It's surely not a coincidence that one of the record's best songs includes the lyric, "This is as close to perfect as we were wishing for."
Even though it is generously filled with orchestral flourishes and a kaleidoscope of synths and nimble guitar lines, Commontime rarely feels overstuffed or, as was often the case on previous Field Music releases, busy to the point of sounding incoherent. Instead, the album balances the Brewis brothers' predilection for unusual song structures and unconventional instrumentation with a decidedly grown up narrative. It's a kind of album-length conversation best summed up in the record's final track, "Stay Awake," which could appropriately read like a dialogue between the band and their listeners, a lover, or maybe even with each other--"I might seem a little reticent / Sometimes I can be miles away, days away / And I'm sorry if I'm ever short with you / I don't mean it / It's a good job that you know me so well."
