Indian Jewelry's debut album, Invasive Exotics, dropped at exactly the right time-- about six months after Liars' Drum's Not Dead. The album proved a worthy footnote to the Year Indie Rock Cared About Tribal-y Drone-y Things, an addendum for those not about to dig through the Einstürzende Neubauten catalog. But be exactly as skeptical of the band's sophomore album "Free Gold!" as you would anything bearing its title: the Houston/Chicago troupe has swallowed itself whole, submitting its already over-serious barnacle-rock to swarming electronics and pedantic sloganeering. Scattered salvations are offered via surprisingly varied songwriting, but "Free Gold!" contains neither the levity nor inspired anger to buoy its industrial-grade sludge.
Like its predecessor, "Free Gold!" still sounds the product of its influences. Making a police lineup out of them isn't useful, but suffice to say Indian Jewelry probably knows what they're up to naming the lead track "Swans". Standard garage and trance-rock tags still apply, and while Indian Jewelry have disappointingly phased out their grooves there's plenty variety to be had: dangling guitar-pop, West Coast psychedelia, ambient blissout. But Indian Jewelry seem to relish applying a layer of gristle and fat to each of these styles, heaping on distended guitar, buzzkill synths, and all other manner of electronic distraction that generally sounds like a cloud of mosquitoes blotting out the sun. Add to this a newfound love of chant and Indian Jewelry zero out most of their versatility before it has a chance to show.
The mantras range from the relatively harmless "That bird is broke/ That bird won't sing" to the outright bizarre and, more pressingly, disastrous: during the croaking dirge of "Hello Africa" the band circles around "Hello Africa/ Hello Af-ri-ca/ Hell Africa/ Hello Hello." "Too Much Honkytonking" lives up to its title if we presume that by "honkytonking" the band means "rallying around a big distorto-riff, caveman tom hits, and a virally irritating, meaningless phrase." Later in the song the lyrics get switched up: "Too much honky-everything," a turn so elementary and internet-clever the sound of your eyes rolling back in their sockets actually drowns out the succeeding bars.
These fleeting successes lend credence to the idea that Indian Jewelry-- who dress in headrobes and bring rifles to their photo shoots and probably spend as much time writing press releases as lyrics-- are a much better idea than they are band. Their suffocate under the specter of momentless four-minute slugs like "Walking on the Water" and "Seasonal Economy". Someone should buy Indian Jewelry better drugs, or perhaps funner drugs, or maybe just a Calvin and Hobbes collection: something, anything to ensure that someone cracks a smile during the band’s next recording session. Or more importantly, the next time someone listens to their record because "Free Gold!" is entirely too weighted, emotionally and sonically.
