Elizabeth Price, who co-founded influential 1980s indie-pop outfit Talulah Gosh when she was an art student, opens an exhibition of video installations later this month at a London gallery. Using pop music from the Shangri-Las, A-Ha, and others, she has said she hopes to convey an unruly humanity she believes is too often missing from contemporary art. "It's cool, it's measured, it's outside of things, and I think that's a complete delusion," she explained in the latest issue of the Wire, suggesting art should instead relate to our "actual social lives."
That's a useful prism for approaching Allo Darlin', the best new group in recent years from a pop tradition that attempts to counter what its members might perceive as the market-corroded fantasy of corporate pop and the detached insularity of many underground records. Led by Australian-born Elizabeth Morris, who previously played with ex-Talulah Gosh frontwoman Amelia Fletcher in Tender Trap, the London foursome established themselves as worthy heirs to Belle and Sebastian, Camera Obscura, and the Sarah Records roster with their 2010 self-titled debut, all hummable melodies, clap-along rhythms, and poignantly turned phrases. Europe maintains these qualities and improves upon its predecessor in almost every way.
Their second album's title refers to the group's ill-fated van tour through Germany and beyond in 2011, clocking in at five weeks and more than 12,000 miles. From the debt crisis to the broadening, increasingly politicized definition of "Europe," the continent remains as ripe for artistic exploration, but Allo Darlin' filter any subliminal economic malaise through clear-eyed observations of what feel like genuine everyday experiences. Where on their debut it was easy to match up individual songs with their specific historical and cultural inspirations, here the band sounds confidently itself, with any pop-culture references wrapped up naturally into the emotional lives of the characters in the songs.
The songs are richer both instrumentally and lyrically: Strings dress up the breathless title track, and the steel guitar of the debut's "Heartbeat Chilli" returns to lend a bittersweet twang on occasion. But more remarkable is the band's core, which shines brighter than ever. Morris' high, bell-like, lightly accented vocals have gained new assurance, and although her ukulele gets its stripped-down showcases, mostly it's an understated complement to the fluid jangle-pop of guitarist Paul Rains, bassist Bill Botting, and drummer Michael Collins. Collins, especially, has grown more consistent since his first go-round without losing that in-the-moment vitality.
Which is crucial, because dizzying impermanence is what the album simultaneously celebrates and preemptively mourns. Morris' lyrics, her most heartbreaking yet, are at once alive with excitement and shrouded with the knowledge that this, too, is fleeting. From the first verse of cautiously optimistic opener "Neil Armstrong", Europe confesses to yearning for "a simpler time," and while the precocious narrator certainly suffers her bouts of homesickness, what the record is really nostalgic for is the ever-passing present. Morris dreams of her native Australia on sunny first single "Capricornia", and elsewhere she avails herself of snail-mail options for communicating with a faraway romantic interest. But no matter how broken she feels on "Europe", another character is at pinch-me levels of giddiness, telling her, "This is life/ This is living."
That youthful joy blooms throughout the album, and it's contagious. "I have a feeling that this day will be amazing," Morris proclaims unaffectedly on gorgeous, midtempo falling-in-love song "Some People Say". "This is the year we'll make it right," she further declares, on the Lucksmiths-style leap of "Northern Lights". On the Go-Betweens-gone-Beatles-in-Hamburg romp "Wonderland", the world feels like it's "ending," but only "when I'm with you"-- and happily, she doesn't care. Before the rousing call-and-response outro of the boozy "Still Young", Morris warns they shouldn't carry on like this, but you suspect they do anyway. Sure, there are a few lyrical over-reaches, but as with the debut's accelerating tempos, they're a testament to the energy captured here, and to dwell on them would be missing the point.
In Europe's world, pop songs are almost characters in their own right. Melancholy, uke-oriented finale "My Sweet Friend" recalls meeting a friend in the park "on the day a famous pop star died," and talks about how records can accrue extra-musical value through their significance in our lives. "Some People Say" hints at this idea early on, mentioning "the song that to me has a hidden meaning." But on sparse, vividly detailed stunner "Tallulah", run-ins with fortuitously familiar tunes-- Talulah Gosh, the Maytals-- prompt Morris to wonder "if I've already heard all the songs that'll mean something," or worse, "already met all the people that'll mean something." When, on wistful midtempo affair "The Letter" she confides to a Silver Jews obsessive, "What if I told you I was never cool/ And all I wanted was just to have you," there's no need to worry.
