If you’re of the opinion that chaotic, bustling, urban melting pots are necessary to facilitate groundbreaking art, Santa Barbara, California will be of great service to your argument. The bucolic, oceanside city of nearly 100,000 is slow-paced, homogenous, and affluent—and since it’s near wine country rather than Orange County, it lacks the stifling suburbia that can generate great punk music as a response. It’s a college town as well, but UC-Santa Barbara ain’t exactly Berkeley in terms of fostering counterculture and political awareness; it’s known as one of America’s premiere party schools. As such, here’s the complete list of notable bands emerging from Santa Barbara since 1990: Toad the Wet Sprocket, Dishwalla, Sugarcult, and now, Gardens & Villa, all acts that tread a similar path. (I’m not necessarily using that as an insult.)
Gardens & Villa sound nothing like the aforementioned, they just happen to run parallel to them, orbiting a very centrist “left-of-center” sound predominantly defining a post-collegiate demographic. What the first three were to their year’s version of khaki-clad alt-rock, Gardens & Villa are to widely available, synthesizer-heavy, kinda naturalistic pop that still gets called “indie rock.” Meaning if the popularity of Beach House or Washed Out was gauged by appearances on MTV and rock radio rather than their font on festival banners, Gardens & Villa would likely get some spins as well.
But how many? The quintet's second album Dunes found them recording in rural Michigan rather than their hometown as a means of avoiding complaceny and sounds more pointedly “pop” than their 2011 self-titled debut. And yet, you can’t take the Santa Barbara out of the band, as Dunes once again shows Gardens & Villa orbiting around the center of discussion at a safe distance, suffering from what befalls the countless populist indie bands running the same route: the affliction of “good enough.”
If you’re pressed to do so, you can describe Chris Lynch‘s vocals and lyrics in a number of kind ways: the former lilting, purified, androgynous, the latter vaguely spiritual, slightly poetic. The one thing you wouldn’t describe either of them as is “distinctive.” Similarly, while Dunes has melodies and choruses, you wouldn’t call it “melodic” or “hooky.” Opener “Domino” is the standout on account of Lynch avoiding the orderly fall of its titular object, the chorus melody going from note to note in the motion of swinging on a set of monkey bars. Otherwise, Dunes prefers to let the listener latch onto unusual words and ones with cool phonetics (“Minnesota”, “Thunder Glove”, “Chrysanthemums”).
Dunes boasts production from DFA’s Tim Goldsworthy, and while his imprimatur isn’t what it used to be, give him credit for ensuring Gardens & Villa keep things varied and in motion. I wouldn’t say it has “grooves” or anything you’d call danceable, though “Bullet Train” is more slinky than your average indie band making it a point to let you know they, like damn near everyone, like Prince. On the other hand, their access to Goldsworthy’s trove of vintage gear can result in puffy slow-jams like “Purple Mesas” that stop Dunes dead in its tracks.
And so this tidy, 10-song collection ends up inspiring the kind of light criticism that calls for the phrase so often accompanying the affliction of “good enough”—none of this means it’s a bad album. Of course it’s not—it’s good enough. But even if the current state of “indie rock” means more visibility for a band like Gardens & Villa than they ever would’ve received in the 1990s, as the saying goes, a rising tide lifts all ships. Think about how you might have encountered a minute-long sample of “Domino” two decades ago—if you randomly heard it at a Sam Goody’s, knowing nothing about who made it, would you ask one of the clerks? Possibly, even if you might forget it the moment you step outside towards the Structure or Babbage's. If a trusted friend lent you Dunes and it was certain to be one of the maybe 30 albums you listened to all year, could it eventually win you over? Perhaps.
But Dunes lives in 2014 and its main concern isn’t competing with the incapacitating amount of music that has nothing to do with it. It’s that they’re one of many bands following this particular path and Dunes’ best hope is that you haven’t heard any of them yet. Judging from the tone of Lynch’s vocals, affable songwriting and studied arrangements, it’s not hard to imagine them starting out back in 2008 as a folkier indie-pop contemporary of early Ra Ra Riot, the Ruby Suns, or the Morning Benders, who also made their synth-y pop records recently with middling-to-god awful results. The good news is that if you shuffled those four albums together in a blind listening test, the songs on Dunes would be best of the lot. The bad news is that most of them sound like the work of the same exact band, so is that kind of “good enough” really enough?
