Forgive me for falling into journalistic convention here but the truism remains: a band's moniker can speak volumes about their career. Need illustration in the form of snarky and hyper-referential 'single serving' synopses? I think we'll get along...
Smashing pumpkins may seem a fun and exciting enterprise to adolescent suburbia, but loses its appeal with age.
The U2, although once the silent ruler of the sky, seems a distant memory in our collective cultural consciousness since becoming a symbol of political turmoil and skewered international relations rather than an exacting weapon of intelligence.
"Little wings," however, appear to be an obvious evolutionary misstep-- appendages that serve no purpose to their host, other than as visible reminders of how futile and zealous nature can be in its rampant experimentalism. Likewise, if I was K records, I'd be in the bathroom with a saw and some ointment right now.
Taking musical cues from the Oldham family side project, The Anomoanon, Little Wings' sparse-mountain-folk-by-way-of-warbly-vocals consciously vies with Will and the gang for marketing dominance over the indie community's wildly profitable bourbon-swilling infant demographic. While it's to lead-singer/songwriter Kyle Field's credit that the child-like observations and paradoxically pensive optimism found throughout Light Green Leaves never lapse into a parody of the genre, the fact remains that there's nothing to distinguish Little Wings from their sonic forebears. That, juxtaposed with song titles that occasionally come off as cutting-room-floor dialogue for the Björk vehicle Dancer in the Dark, ("Boom!", "iii", "Si Si", etc.), makes it pretty apparent that what we have here is just another mediocre addition to the litany of alt-country revivalists.
That isn't to say that Fields is content with simply churning out product. While it's true that Light Green Leaves acts as nothing more than a reiteration of Little Wings' heralded "Wonder Trilogy," the spare and evocative delivery of such tracks as "Uh-Oh (It's Morningtime Again)" and "Under Your Blanket" finds the group coming extraordinarily close to transcending their limited musical vocabulary. Unfortunately, the record gives more indications of stagnation than of progress, asking the listener to marvel at how many disingenuous folk songs one man can author in the shortest given period of time, rather than invoking the wide-eyed wonder the lyrics would suggest.
Upon its release, Light Green Leaves will be available in three different formats, each chronicling the album in a different stage of completion. A fairly presumptuous move on the group's part, considering their relatively small fanbase. Maybe Kyle Field's exhausting his musical catalog so as to prepare himself for a complete 'revisioning.' His close friendship with the Microphones' Phil Elvrum couldn't hurt, though I doubt Elvrum has had much time to exert his influence, what with being nominated for saint-hood by Pitchfork's recently established Our Lady of the Lo-Fi and producing Mirah's excellent Advisory Committee. But, knowing the luck of the buying public, Field is just readying himself for a breakthrough collaboration with Shel Silverstein.
