It's been four years since Namelessnumberheadman released their last album, Your Voice Repeating, a captivating mix of live instruments and laptop pop back when that idea was a bit more novel. Things are a little different these days, especially with the initial bliss and ensuing oversaturation of the Postal Service now over, but Namelessnumberheadman are far from stuck in that same rut. As before, they hold onto some of the hallmarks of their Midwestern peers: In not just the lilting drawl of vocalists Chuck Whittington and Andrew Sallee, but also the titanic drums that almost overbear their gentler tendencies, Namelessnumberheadman recall Flaming Lips, but there's also a similar strain between this three-man group and the Minus Story, Doris Henson, and even Sparklehorse, with impassioned, effeminate melodies struggling against waves of washed-out keyboards and clamoring percussion.
The crashing Steve Drozd-like drums are still present and accounted for, but the melodies more pronounced, the acoustic guitars take more focus, and the gentle drum pads quietly putter behind them. There's nothing like the cascading sonics of the chorus of "Going to Breathe Again" or "(At Least) Three Cheers for Cause and Effect" (both from Your Voice Repeating) here, but there's also a lot less genre sidestepping and more honest-to-god synthesis of folk and electronic elements. It's apparent from the very beginning of opener "Animal Kingdom", where the drums quickly recede to a speedy strum and a paean to more earthly preoccupations from Sallee, concerning "cicada's wings," "wet worms," and "leaf's veins", all leading to a slower, more organic pulse. Likewise, "The Beginning" puts all its faith in a hook that has little to do with electronics, but climbing guitars and Sallee's croon, and breaks for an almost campfire-appropriate respite of only guitar-and-voice. More mechanical percussion pokes its head out behind the plucking of "Branches of Branches of Branches" or fluttering extraneous samples on "An Argument to Stand On", but its always just another texture making up a seamless whole. Some of the record's most arresting moments aren't wrested from a keyboard, but a pedal steel guitar, as on the Whittington-led late-album highlight "Lesser Fates".
Both vocalists get more adventurous and try out a larger range, while guitars climb, they simper, they proclaim, they insinuate, but they don't always assert themselves. Those big, crashing drums often undermine the peaks and valleys of the songs like a house of cards, and otherwise sharp melodies like "Opposable Thumbs" aren't as dynamic as they could be because of it. Still, that's a minor complaint compared to the evolution of the band, who sat out the lap-pop hangover to develop more of their own identity as swooning folk artists for the next century.
