Even factoring in the tendency for bands to grow less weird as they get older, Tunng's move toward the middle is sort of remarkable. Once a band who incorporated dusty electronics and odd instruments in sweetly bizarre folk songs, Tunng now record folk songs that are sweetly... sweet. That's an indictment, but less of one than it seems. Tunng's fourth album, ...And Then We Saw Land, contains few of the appealing crevices and pocks of their early work, but sees them developing as songwriters.
It's fitting that Saw Land is coming out within weeks of reissues of albums by the Incredible String Band, another British folk band that was always weirder in concept than reality. Tunng probably never deserved the laborious mini-genres they've been tagged with, as they fit neatly in a tradition of British bands who have a slightly warped take on pastoral folk. Saw Land features stronger songwriting than the too-even Good Arrows, which in retrospect feels like a transitional album. The increased presence of Becky Jacobs' vocals further separates Saw Land from Tunng's mumble-y, bookish albums.
Tunng still employ electronics, but instead of scattering them throughout the mix, here they construct gentle, noticeable grooves. "Sashimi", Saw Land's hookiest track, opens with a fervent acoustic guitar, one that eventually shares space with a chiming rhythmic loop. It's probably the closest Tunng have ever sounded to MOR indie rock, which might say more about the prevalence of folk and electronic elements in modern indie than it does about Tunng's transition.
Saw Land moves between the gentle, accented folk-pop that has become Tunng's calling card ("Hustle", "Weekend Away") and songs that seem burlier, or more obviously structured ("Don't Look Down or Back", which features big group choruses and ornery electric guitars). This mix leaves Tunng in an awkward spot, audience-wise: they seem a bit too Grizzly Bear for the avant-folk crowd and probably too weird and British for the Grizzly Bear crowd. Only during "The Roadside" does the band truly find balance: Curlicues of guitar, vocals, piano, and percussion move in and out of frame. Its sounds are full and beautiful, but the structure is skewed and out of focus.
"The Roadside" seems like something to build on, but doing so will require Tunng to move away from the more rigid structures they've adopted on their last two albums. No one should begrudge them their cleaner, smoother sound, but straight-laced songwriting has sapped the band's well-worn eccentricities. Tunng have outgrown and outlasted the restrictive genres they were once boxed into, but Saw Land struggles to find its place in a larger context.
