Recorded and mixed by the excellent Bryce Goggin, Grrr... sounds immaculate: The guitars are sharp. The drums are steady. The harmonies are supple. Its various strings, shakers, and horns captured and layered into a well-spaced, easily listenable whole. After a spin or three, a handful of Grrr...'s 13 tracks should stick, too, whether it's the vibraphone-abetted "The Lion & the Teacup" or the squiggling, lustful plunder-like-pirates number, "Shanghaied". And maybe being swept up by a hook or two is enough, but much like the politely irritated word it takes for its name, the too-pleasant Grrr... concedes to middle-of-the-road safety, hoping to offend no one and, in the process, says absolutely nothing.
Music that's safe, of course, isn't necessarily worthy of derision, especially if its origins and aims are pedestrian. If you're criticizing Jason Mraz for writing "I'm Yours" to push a few hundred thousand units, you're picking an easy and misguided fight. But, complete with references to Pliny the Elder's ornithological bent, their borough's rooftop activities, and a friend's broken vinyl records, Grrr... is by, of, and for indie kids. In fact, Bishop Allen regularly remind us their protagonists are apart from and above the masses: Characters climb roofs and hit the road in idealized beatnik fashion. They leave everyone else behind, staring down from the tops of buildings or forgetting people's names when they cross state lines. They treat the rest of the world as a quaint curiosity.
What's more, Bishop Allen's narrators see their surroundings solipsistically. The world is theirs for the using, Bishop Allen suggests, an idea epitomized by the mercurial character of "Dirt on Your New Shoes". She turns seashells into her necklace, the ground into her mattress, and the band into her jukebox. And worse, Bishop Allen's subjects suggest the world has no bigger worry than their feelings. When the South China moon shines down, it burns "a hole in my head out of spite." The particularly unstable narrator of "Rooftop Brawl" startles that the sun still shines, not that he's lived long enough to see it again. That is, he fancies that the world's fate hinges on his ability to outlast his depression through the night. Fuck you and me and all y'all, really: The sun rises only for him.
So this batch of smug tunes comes aimed above or around the lot of us, but it's not a significant loss. In their neat instrumental outfits-- where everything is mannerly and tucked and where a distorted guitar actually sounds parodic-- these songs serve mostly as reminders that songwriters singing about love, wounded friends, and hitting the road have long done this stuff better, both through more relevant references and less banal sonics. Musically, these songs don't deserve to pretend they're better than anything else.
That's too bad, as Bishop Allen's 2006 monthly EP series suggested a band of guileless but educated, prolific but considered romantics. Back then, Bishop Allen could turn moving a piano into heart-quaking triumph ("Corazon") or meeting a mistaken woman into reassuring compassion ("Bellingham"). A sense of musical delight and adventurousness served those EPs well. Mixing docile acoustic waltzes with clashing, blunt bar rock, Bishop Allen sounded eager to explore all corners of pop.
But even when Bishop Allen regales with the crazy sights they've seen or the tough lives they've lived, Grrr... seems transcribed from a distant memory or read from the pages of a script (Sullivan's Travels perhaps, or O Brother, Where Art Thou?). In the movie Mutual Appreciation, Bishop Allen frontman Justin Rice played an aspiring singer-songwriter named Alan who said he was looking for experience, not happiness. Five years later, Rice's real band-- which has never sounded so woefully self-involved and unengaged-- would do well to heed that advice.
