Okay, I get it: I have to write about the music now. Yep, Jason Schwartzman is gone (though he did participate in much of the recording process), and Phantom Planet have recorded a square-one, hear-us-again-for-the-first-time, career-redefining rock album in his wake. This, their self-titled stab at garage-rock celebrity, has forced me to shelve my arsenal of diversionary Slackers 2, "California" on Leno, O.C. soundtrack-ready, pop-by-the-numbers japes in favor of-- what a concept-- actually telling you something you didn't already know about the record. But first, let's get through the basics: legendary indie producer Dave Fridmann was enlisted for the project in a counterintuitive push to navigate the turbulent asteroid-fields of distortion, drive, and relentless energy Phantom Planet storm through here. The guys do ease up somewhat in the second half, but the net result is a record of overwhelming deconstruction and newly explored territorial demarcation.
On their new self-titled LP, Phantom Planet are unapologetically retrofitted (current trends withstanding), distortion laced, galvanic, garage-rock "with an edge." In fact, the lead single "Big Brat" is decidedly less instantly infectious than anything the band has recorded to date. Driven by pummeling drum work and a distorted bassline, the track's linear progress is impeded only by a moment of tainted, chaotic reprieve before it summarily reemerges for a propulsive flourishing squalor. Alex Greenwald's vocals have taken on an insouciant sneer, and for the most part (as on this track), his choruses rarely articulate any newfound sense of melody, but rather serve as a breaking point for his bleary-eyed, slurred and spat verses. He sings with enough jaded conviction to convince you he's in no way affiliated-- nor even so much as interested in-- Oscar after-parties and Paper-sponsored celebrity get-togethers.
Songs such as the opener "Happy Ending" and the second half's obligatory pace setter "Jabberjaw" offer a churlish delivery of heavily front-mixed, unflaggingly bushwhacked drum and bass leads, behind which Greenwald's verses and subtle guitar melodies take temporary shelter from all the clutter, shifting only enough to flag down an austere rhythmic verse to chorus handoff. "Happy Ending" is an example of the formula at its most virile, boasting a catchy guitar rhythmic breakdown, and "Badd Business" finds similar success through a ska-tinged (well, it's the "tinged" that saves it) bass beat and a quick lived group-shouted choral explosion.
The breaking point of the album is the slackened-guitar-strap, hair-in-eyes eruptive shoegaze toss-off "You're Not Welcome Here", where all strengths past and present fail to carry the track as a purebred rocker. Like it or not, some off The Guest's finest moments were a result of Phantom Planet's willingness to deliver unabashed pop melodicism, and while the scraps of this feast remain scattered about and buried within this new album, there are none on this track.
The second half of the album, then, showcases the worth of enlisting Fridmann. Both "By the Bed" and "After Hours" retain the simple delicacy of Phantom Planet's earlier work, and though newly framed as subdued rockers, they deliver fine moments of relative retrospection and tepid seduction. Greenwald's vocal delivery takes back the frontline on "After Hours", as he coolly chastises L.A.'s pretentious nightlife, smugly singing, "You dress so nice/ You dress to kill/ They drop like flies, but/ Who's the funeral for?" So, too, does the opening half of "Knowitall" ride this wave of retro-pulsed, softly spun revelation, before succumbing to an unfortunately predictable cathartic chase and burn flourish. Thus, it unfolds; a band eschewing its strengths can both find success and disenfranchisement. Fortunately for Phantom Planet, this album offers a good deal more of the former, but even if it represents method-acting at its finest, I'm willing to suspend disbelief long enough to let the curtains fold.
