Since their inception, Chicago's Bound Stems have shown that they have the ability to write great guitar pop, but they've always wanted to do more, to add layers of complexity and tension to their catchy songs. The band's first full-length, Appreciation Night, mined a lot of charm from the clutter, though its few more linear songs stood taller than the rest. Follow-up The Family Afloat is more earnestly committed to making pop out of these tricky, occasionally incongruent parts. It's in the same carefully-cultivated messiness of their debut, but it seems to strike a better balance: The production shines, the transitions are more careful and the interludes more purposeful, the vocals are fuller and more confident, the hooks swing harder, and there's even a distinct theme. The opening track makes a trip to San Francisco sound better than Disney World, but the rest of the songs come to terms with putting down roots.
That opener, "Taking Tips From the Gallery Gang", puts Bobby Gallivan's voice right up front, with ephemeral layers of guitar fading in and out underneath. It has a typically unpredictable arrangement, but with a newfound anchor. "Happens to Us All Otherwise," meanwhile, might be the group's catchiest and most direct pop song yet, bursting with jangling guitars and innocent, pleading vocals. "Passing Bell" and "Palace Flophouse and Grill" return to the lurching, unpredictable rhythms of their previous album and EP, but Gallivan and singer Janie Porche are far less tentative vocalists and can better carry the song. (Porche only gets a bewildering, borderline angsty solo spot on "Palace"; she steps up when needed on Family Afloat, but mostly avoids the spotlight.)
In a catalogue where mood is as important as songwriting, the placid piano track "Clear Water & Concrete" has some of their prettiest and most compelling textures yet. (It's also a welcome shift to a more meditative tone, as the band hardly takes a breath to let their hooks land at this point.) "Cloak of Blue Sky" has the city imagery Bound Stems often trade in and more of the affable shuffle that seems to be their rhythmic comfort zone. "Winston" is an even better shift in tone, with acoustic strums, a few banjo plucks, and atmospheric keyboards that are beautiful, affecting, and put together with impossible care.
Closing track "Sugar City Magic" begins with a staccato guitar line that's more in line with the pensive math-rock that the band toyed with in their earlier, pre-Flameshovel days, though it soon shifts perspectives by handing off the baton on vocals to get a more layered view on the family in the lyrics. For all their ambition, there are still moments on Family Afloat that feel forced-- more "Look what we can do!" instead of simply, "Look what we do well." Yet Bound Stems have the rarefied ability to make that mess sound gorgeous, as if all were in its right place even when it's held together by chewing gum in some spots.
