The jaunty, irrepressible indie pop of the Love Language's 2009 debut was borne of a personal tailspin: Stuart McLamb wrote and recorded it after retreating to his parents' house, licking his wounds following a brutal breakup and his subsequent collapse. The songs he produced, however, were anything but self-pitying. With nothing but his melodic gifts and an appealing sense of wry resignation, McLamb spun his despair into music that felt more like a whoop of joy than a cry of loneliness.
On follow-up Libraries, McLamb sounds less down and out but, oddly, more downbeat. The scrappy, lo-fi production of the debut is gone; he recorded the album by himself again but did so in a proper studio, and the record glimmers with soft-pedaled production touches. McLamb's handsome, worn croon is here blessed with the spiraling reverb it demands, and his colorful arrangements swell impressively to fill the new sonic space. "Pedals" announces his intentions out of the gate with an Arcade Fire-size arrangement given a sonic full court press. Like many former lo-fi musicians, McLamb alternately luxuriates and gets lost in his plush new surroundings. On several songs, he evaporates in the arrangement, "ooh"-ing wordlessly in the background as barroom piano and shimmering tremolo guitar swirl around him. The heart-catching "This Blood Is Our Own" is a standout example, beginning as a Stones-y blues ballad before an ethereal countrypolitan string section touches down, sending the song into a delirious coda that hits the same swooning heights Cass McCombs did last year on "You Saved My Life".
The pace on Libraries is more measured and the mood more muted, however, which means nothing here hits with the same immediacy as the first record's "Lalita" or "Sparxxx". Where the debut tapped the effervescent spirit of Merseybeat and the wintergreen harmonies of Dexys Midnight Runners, Libraries nods more to Burt Bacharach, and the record can sag occasionally under the drowsy weight of his influence. Of the album's 10 songs, only the trashcan percussion of "Heart to Tell" and the bone-crack backbeat of "Brittany's Back" match the debut's ragged exuberance. Others, like "Horophones", are well-meaning, well-written mid-tempo tunes that lack an animating spirit. McLamb is still a fantastically talented pop songwriter, though, one with the unerring ability to write melodies that seem to have tumbled out in a spontaneous rush of joy, and several songs here-- the lazy-Sunday-stroll shuffle of "Anthrophobia", for instance-- reveal this talent operating at its peak.
