Considering the sort of cute overload your typical husband/wife music duo induces, Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel have done a commendable job establishing Mates of State as an original, inventive band rather than indie pop's equivalent of a lolcat. While their mid-concert kissy faces and ubiquitous canoodling press shots would seem to depict their music strictly as a product of love's labors, the duo's most intriguing draw stems from their ingenuity, consistently setting off creative lightbulbs album-after-album despite a limiting drums/keys palette. Of course, that's not to say the couple is impervious to the Sonny & Cher effect. With two newly-minted babies in two years, Gardner and Hammel must feel a rite of passage into parenthood is due, as Re-Arrange Us thoroughly redecorates the standard Mates of State sound.
In Re-Arrange Us, these increasingly domesticated Mates have basically made an album to cook dinner and do the dishes to. Considering recent signs like their adorable naked PETA photo shoot, extensive blog chronicling of their daughters, and nascent experimentation with string arrangements on 2006's Bring It Back, the move to a gooey MOR aesthetic shouldn't be so surprising. The real shocker is how Gardner switches to piano after years on her trusty 1970s Electone organ, an instrument that served as her Excalibur, Mjolnir, and "Wonder Boy" bat all rolled into one. With his wife's sparkling arpeggios and carnival pump organ on the shelf, Hammel has no choice but to sound equally tame behind the skins, causing these songs to gently build rather than jerk the listener through one ADD idea after another.
The move is especially dangerous considering how the duo's runaway-mine-car frenzy was the principal repellent of emo accusations in the past. Re-Arrange Us, bogged down in fluffy multi-instrumental arrangements and overdubbed harmonies, can't help but slow things down and do some soul searching, sometimes to a stomach-wrenching degree. While most of the tracks here don't surpass Bring It Back's lengthier durations, the added emotional and textural heft sure makes them seem longer. "Now", for example, softens the signature arpeggio from 2006 single "For the Actor" into the kind of celestial (for lack of better word) balladeering a band like Stars pulls off more effectively. Even the broken record chorus of repeated "Now!"'s sounds oddly tranquil as both singers fly below their usual high-register yelp. Other potential dramatic peaks are similarly botched on "Blue and Gold Print" or "You Are Free", two rose-tinted lullabies hamstrung by sluggish melodies and too many held notes posing as hooks.
For those fearing the duo has jumped the shark here, history shows this could just be a brief stumble. Our Constant Concern from 2002 suffered from similar ailments as this album's (e.g., uninteresting harmonies, conservative songwriting, pedestrian tempos), and the band bounced back with 2003's Team Boo, their most white-knuckled album to date. Throwbacks like "The Re-Arranger" and "Help Help" prove the Mates still possess a mischievous pop streak, especially when belting scattershot melodies over each other. Unfortunately there aren't a lot of opportunities to get caught in that lovely crossfire on Re-Arrange Us, a record that, for all its lush bells and whistles, finds the pair sounding as bare-boned and sparse as you'd expect a two-person band to be.
