Angular, studio-polished emo-math-punk is the stuff of slightly wizened-up ex-mallcore kids, not premeds. Don't tell that to Pretty Girls Make Graves-- they know it. For four years the band has made music in a style that's widely warned against. But what many have read as shallow, angsty discharge actually bespeaks an unusual maturity as Pretty Girls Make Graves throw caution to the wind and do as they please-- an insouciance that has translated well into their music.
I guess it's no surprise, then, that the same musicians who OK'd the lines "Do you remember what the music meant?" and "Do you remember when the music meant something?" on back-to-back albums would eventually grow self-conscious and give into pressure to expand their horizons. For that I'll begrudge Élan Vital's growing pains. The band's first record in three years is also its first with keyboardist Leona Marrs, and the album packages a loosened-up (read: defanged), groove-centric sound, infinitely more urbane but so much more boring, too. Forced change always comes off rushed and awkward and overzealous; no exception here, from half-timed should-be banger "The Magic Hour" to post-Decemberists accordion-whacked "Selling the Wind".
Opener "The Nocturnal House" makes a weak but sadly appropriate opening statement. On previous records, this band sounded Xacto knife sharp; not only were their chops speed metal-worthy, the recordings pulled each note taut so the chops actually did chop. Élan Vital is a looser, sloppier affair, soft-angled where The New Romance was acute-as-fuck, humid and thick where the old stuff was icy-clean. "The Nocturnal House" abuses drummer Nick DeWitt's talents, overdoing the kicks and generally running him silly on the odd-meter hamster wheel. Singer Andrea Zollo's vocals come in massive, echoing tides, which waterlog the track where it needs precision. Better is "Parade", which is franker about its rhythm and takes care not to overflavor the sauce, a smooth velouté of bass, honeyed keyboards, and tastefully double-tracked drums. It's the best rock samba since Deerhoof's "Spirit Ditties of No Tone".
"Domino" sidles up to the edge of the prom dancefloor doing its sultriest neo-disco two-step. It's hard to front on the two-finger piano bass line and vocal-mirroring organ gestures, but peals of overdriven guitars sully the swagger. Such is it with much of Élan Vital. Parts that might otherwise dash or dance or do pole vaults instead feel haggard or encumbered by reverb and other treatments. There's obviously a desire to take a risk here, flee the comfort zone, which is admirable, and expected-- bands always get stir crazy before their listeners do. But the more complicated this album grows, the more I miss erstwhile PGMG's beeline energy, which Phil Ek's crisp production helped to further galvanize. "Speakers Push the Air", with its loping synth undercarriage and synced-up guitar bends, was sophisticated enough; "All Medicated Geniuses" turned polyrhythmic tailwhips without sacrificing anthem. Élan Vital finds the band turning up rocks for a new voice when all it really needs to do is chase its own tail.
