Have you actually had an appletini, or do you just make jokes about people who drink appletinis? There's your litmus test for Psapp's The Camel's Back: If you answered yes to the first bit, you will probably dig it, while those who fall under the latter category will most likely have a hard time getting past the record's sloe gin fizz. I'm a High Life man myself, but have you ever had an appletini? They're sort of delicious. Ditto Psapp; sure, they're awfully swank and sultry and sound like the auditory equivalent of sinking into a high-backed leather couch, but when it's done right, it can be a nice change from keying High Lifes out back.
See, Psapp play what's essentially cocktail jazz music with a strong indie-pop lean, the kind of thing that you'd expect to stumble onto in some red-tinted lounge with the $13 fruit-laden beverages and lots of sexy people doing sexy things. The jazzy side of Psapp's "toytronica"-- an unfortunate but oddly sticky qualifier for Psapp's glitchy production style-- is played up to fine effect on The Camel's Back, while the clink-and-clank of the music has been streamlined a smidge to help push the songs (rather than the sounds) to the forefront. Sure, there's the occasional plunk of a child's piano or the wheeze of a mini-accordion, but with its sophisticated structures overwhelming its occasional grass-stained dressings, this is hardly kids play-- hell, Galia Durant and Carim Classman have grown since 2006's The Only Thing I Ever Wanted.
Opener and highlight "I Want That" gets the the ball rolling; the song whooshes by like a couple of passing trains, as vocalist Galia Durant makes her empassioned plea for whatever "that" is. Durant's spirited singing is, as ever, Psapp's great strength, her voice clear and expressive through all the precise, occasionally passionless tittering behind her. No matter the tune, Durant gets it over, and it's fun to hear her jump from flat and stonefaced ("Fickle Ghost") to sing-songy ("The Monster Song", which, awesomely, is about monsters) without missing a beat.
Not that you'd miss them anyway. Durant and Classman have toned down the so-called "toytronica" flourishes big-time, which makes The Camel's Back their most dynamic and, in a way, lushest record to date: there's less going on, but more to actually hear, since this time out the production's warm and open rather than cluttered and, as a result, quashed. That's great for "I Want That" and the Wes Anderson soundtracky instrumental "Marshrat" and quite a few others, but when there's less to the tracks but the tunes and Durant's voice, you start to notice the cracks in the façade. A good lot of these tunes gallop at approximately the same pace, and while Durant's can be an awfully sly lyrical wit, she's not always, so roughly half of The Camel's Back rides by on sputter and swoon without much in the way of song behind it. Psapp have plenty of tricks up their shiny sleeves, but only rarely on The Camel's Back-- "I Want That", "Mister Ant", "Part Like Waves", the gorgeous "Screws"-- do they pull them all out at once. It's always pleasant, but it only rarely pulls you in; like I said, good background music.
"Screws" is the outlier among the highlights; it's a piano ballad stripped bare until its last few seconds, and holy hell, is it ever gorgeous. Durant's less-cyborgy-Laetitia Sadier pipes are well showcased, and Psapp prove that they don't need all that twinkling and tinkering to crank out a good one. It's followed by the brief "Homicide", all clock-innards boing, which serves mostly to annoy before the slurry, Squirrel Nut Zippery "Parker" closes things out, but the contrast between the two tracks is striking; the one proves something Psapp have somewhat stubbornly avoided their whole career to this point-- writing a fine song without a lot of bells and whistles-- while the other seems impatient to get said bells and whistles on wax after a brief respite and builds a track (albeit a short one) around 'em. Psapp are certainly getting closer to achieving a perfect balance in their sound, and The Camel's Back is certainly lounge jazz of a higher proof than most, but save perhaps "I Want That", "Screws" is the one number here that'd make you put down your drink. Here's hoping Durant and Classman add a few more like it to their repertoire next time out.
