Blue Lambency Downward, the third album from Brooklyn-via-Boston symphonic-metal/somnolent-prog outfit Kayo Dot, is the folly of unwieldy ambition: Across its seven tracks and 43 minutes, lone constant member Toby Driver edits both the scripts of Kayo Dot and his former progressive metal outfit Maudlin of the Well. Kayo Dot's first two albums, 2003's Choirs of the Eye and 2006's Dowsing Anemone With Copper Tongue, could be overbearing and melodramatic, their distended build-ups and full-thrust, exhaustive climaxes sounding sometimes more like Spiritualized Slint soap operas than anything else. But Blue Lambency Downward-- a monolith of interwoven slinking horns and strings, understated guitars, piano, electronics, and hesitant vocals from a guy who used to sing as though possessed-- goes overboard in tedium.
An album as high on concept as it is on constricts, Lambency trickles by without much impact at all. First listens to old Kayo Dot records were hours of discovery and backwards wanderlust: "How did I get to this very loud place?" But this first listen is a continuum of impressionistic instances in which can you see the big rising action in the distance but never get too close. Drums tumble and struggle through much of the 10-minute opening title track, their rhythmic unrest suggesting a catapult that never comes. Likewise, "Clelia Walking" intimates tension through its drums, which roll and empty into melancholic strings before repeating, and "Right Hand Is the One I Want" uses fitful figures-- staggered vocal lines, violin motifs that shoot away at sharp angles, drums that still dodge the rhythm-- only to suggest excitement. The back half is at least more dynamic, but an instrumental and two short numbers do little more than maintain the record's tepid temperament. Only closer "Symmetrical Arizona" pushes near potency: Over 11 amorphous minutes, Driver does his best singing as the band offers its most provocative arrangements. A slow build through billowing horns and textural percussion suggests a rockist Varèse, especially as the horns stretch over bumps and syncopations in bright blue notes. Chiseled guitars add suspense, and the impressionistic passages suddenly make an imprint.
But it's not enough to counter the previous half-hour or suggest more than Grizzly Bear making a (polite) left turn. Lambency's lack of contrast and its vacuum of irresolution are only symptomatic of the record's holistic problem: there's not much memorable to grab onto. Records don't need a sense of catharsis, redemption, or even emotional upheaval to be effective. But-- like a perfectly placed line, a well crafted hook, or a smartly built texture-- certain elements allow bands to lift listeners along into a self-made world. For an album so singular, Lambency offers a disappointing number of those devices. Aside from the playful melodic phrases of Skerik (whose associations range from Critters Buggin and Hella to Trey Anastasio and Stanton Moore) and violinist Mia Matsumiya (the band's only other full-time member), very little sound lingers here.
Lyrically, Lambency is a Cedric Bixler-Zavala-sized wreck, full of political quips too vague to register and elliptical discursions that hinge weakly on phrases like "bifurcated ammonites" and "tiffany redoubts." "We hope the clouds stop bouncing each other off the mountains/ We hope the wooden lookout has a gutter it can use," Driver sings on "The Awkward Wind Wheel". As bad as that reads, he manages to make the tangled texts even worse when he sings them. His best Jeff Buckley is graceless and unconvincing, the deliverance of his words seemingly more important than the manner in which they're delivered. Hell, at least he didn't waste his best breath.
