Part of Pram's charm has always come from the junky, worn sound of the instruments they employ: a battery of kitsch like homemade theremin, glockenspiel, loungey synths, and the other accoutrements that with their lo-fi lack of polish made the group sound genuinely "vintage"-- in the most leftover, castaway sense of the word. It took a real spark of ingenuity to breathe life into something that had been all but designed to sound beaten: the snarled noise of Gash and the infectious, bubbly Museum of Imaginary Animals-- with its mermaids and owls, frizzy noise and bursting-out hooks-- showcase the band at their best.
But their new record, Dark Island, paints them in a drab light. Working at a slower pace, they play off a shallow exoticism as genuine as a fortune teller on the boardwalk in a seaside town. Song titles like "Penny Arcade" and "Peepshow" evoke old-time fun, the kind that you don't really believe in but go along with because it's shiny and makes your date giggle. But more often than not, the facade doesn't sparkle: the album's like a wind-up toy that's slowly worn itself out.
The problem is that Pram don't fit the poignant mood they're trying to create. First and foremost, singer Rosie Cuckston-- their lyricist and frontwoman-- sounds dreary even as she aims for "mysterious." To further the analogy, if we're talking about wind-up toys, Cuckston is the clapping monkey that's been loved a little too hard and can't quite get the cymbals to connect. Her voice has often been called "idiosyncratic" for her tendency to show off just how weak it can be; instead of playing to its few strengths, she'll flaunt how much she's struggling to hit or sustain a note-- see Museum's "Bewitched" for an example that, in a goofy way, actually works. Here, however, she's just flattened and even listless on ballads like "Goodbye"-- a tune with a glimmering melody and hurt sentiment that nevertheless doesn't tug the heartstrings.
The band barely shakes off the dust of the past three years: trumpet and clarinet on "Peepshow" barely conjure a burlesque swagger, but the synths of "Penny Arcade"-- the kind of technology that gets them compared to a low-rent Stereolab-- throb and buzz dazingly to support Cuckston's hints of sin. "Paper Hats", with an abruptly quicker tempo and knottier lyrics, almost sounds out of place, less breezy and more tense than the other tracks. The instrumentals promise less and deliver the most, like "Leeward", which captures the best sense of dreamy, distant drifting, wafting away on numbing waters; yet too many of the songs repeat and meander until this mood wears off.
With more work, this direction could pay off, but even the fizziest of their past records were marked by eccentric, even manic bursts that carried the dark subject matter; at their best, they refined the contrast between the tinny gaiety of their tacky music and the complexity of Cuckston's voice. Taking the whole thing seriously ruins the tension, and Dark Islands is as somber as an amusement park in the off-season: sad and profound-looking at first, but ultimately, pretty dull.
