Back in 2003, Alden Penner was a member of the Unicorns, one of the first bands to draw serious attention to Montreal's thriving indie rock scene. At the same time, Brendan Reed was the drummer of Arcade Fire, and performed on that band's debut EP. Just a year later, Arcade Fire exploded in popularity just after Reed's departure, and the Unicorns imploded and disbanded before ever recording a second album. Though Penner and Reed have been active in the time since, Clues' self-titled debut marks both artists' return to the spotlight since their crucial early efforts in building Montreal's well-deserved reputation as one of the best arts scenes in North America.
Given that Penner is the primary songwriter in Clues, it should come as no surprise that the band's music bears a stronger resemblance to the skewed art pop of the Unicorns than the heart-pounding stadium anthems of Arcade Fire. Penner's guitar style remains hyperactive and colorful, but his songwriting has become more ambitious, adapting his former band's sense of faux-mystical whimsy to arrangements implying danger and adventure, resulting in music that often sounds as if it were intended to be the soundtrack of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. The songs that most closely match this description are easily the most rewarding. The riffs in "Cave Mouth" swing and slash like an enormous battle ax; "Remember Severed Head" and "Approach the Throne" marry grandiose melodic themes and urgent, adrenaline-pumping rhythms. In these tracks, Clues hit upon a magical combination of Chavez's razor sharp chord progressions, the quasi-Medieval melodic sensibility of late-period Helium, and the oddball drama of the Danielson Famile.
The band is less successful in its quieter moments. Though about half of the album rocks outs with a twitchy, childlike enthusiasm, the remainder is deliberately static and lethargic. They are particularly fond of sequencing lulls before their most aggressive moments, as with the long, repetitive quasi-folk number that gradually builds to the manic burst of energy at the start of "Cave Mouth", or the tense ambience that carries through the opener "Haarp" until it erupts into a punk-rock payoff in its final minute. On a conceptual level, this is fine, and they are more than capable of evoking a spooky atmosphere, but these slower passages are simply not as pleasurable and well-realized as their frenetic rockers. These cuts also highlight the band's flaws. Just as Clues exaggerate dynamic shifts in their more rocking compositions, they also push their stillness to unfortunate extremes, resulting in seemingly interminable tracks that overwork threadbare melodic themes. Penner's thin voice is not flattered by the slowness either, as it nudges him to sing in an often-annoying nasal whine that sounds a bit like someone doing a mean-spirited impression of Mercury Rev's Jonathan Donahue.
Aside from these problems, Clues is a very assured debut with a fully formed aesthetic that exploits the strengths of its players while pushing them beyond their established comfort zones. With any luck, Penner will be able to stick with this project for a second album-- there may be some excellent tracks on this record, but it mostly hints at better things to come down the line.
