"Tried to forget about the old ways, tried to discover a new meaning," Andrew Rieger sings at the end of Sunlight on the Moon, Athens psych-pop mainstays Elf Power's 12th album. Like just about any band staring down their third decade, Elf Power have slowly but surely left many of those old ways behind. 2010's pristine, sad-eyed Elf Power—a tribute to their late friend and occasional collaborator Vic Chesnutt—was a far cry from the fuzzed-out, freewheeling psych of the late 90s LPs these Elephant 6ers built their reputation on. The prim Elf Power often seemed to confuse maturity for safety, its clean, carefully composed melodies coming off more staid than surprising. Sunlight on the Moon buzzes and hums more like the Elf Power of old, but the songs themselves still seem a little scared of their own shadows.
Rieger's never been the most effusive singer, a shortcoming his clear-as-a-bell tone and oddball lyricism generally covered for. But Elf Power's recent embrace of more conventional forms—melodies, lyrics, production, you name it—leaves Rieger without much to hide behind. He sings his way through much of Sunlight on the Moon like he's laying down guide vocals for somebody else to come in and replace; on Sunlight's title track, he sings of "dying in the war" and "death… in the sky" as though he's idly shuffling through takeout menus. As a lyricist, he's grown considerably since the f-bomb dropping "Circular Malevolence" era, his metaphors richer, his anxieties less overpowering. But it's gotten harder and harder to grab onto anything he's saying when all of it's sung in this dispassionate tone: "woken and wild, I hear the screams," he calmly intones on "Grotesquely Born Anew." That makes one of us.
Next to the 2008 album In a Cave's flailing and Elf Power's futzing, Sunlight can feel downright rough-and-tumble. The patina of fuzz that surrounds most of these tracks makes Sunlight the scrappiest Elf Power LP in some time, its scruffier numbers—"Strange Designs," "Lift the Shell"—harkening back to the days crouched around the four-track. But the stripped-down approach comes at a cost; without much adornment, these songs are front-and-center, a scrutiny they're not always up for. Rieger and songwriting partner Laura Carter have penned entirely too many melodies over the years to drop the ball now. But inspiration seems to be at a minimum here; the songs have been refined to the point of stiffness, so plain as to be bloodless, the kind of thing no amount of scuzz can cover up.
Sunlight has it moments; rumbling power-popper "Lift the Shell," with its sci-fi feedback and baby gurgles, is an easy highlight, coming off like an Apples in Stereo tune after a bad night's sleep. The country-tinged "Darkest Wave" sneaks a little "Paint It Black" guitar into the fray, while hints of mandolin elevate the stately "Things Lost". The album opens up quite a bit in headphones, where the subtler instrumental flourishes sneak their way past the fuzz. Again, these songs aren't short on craft, and they're certainly never less than pretty, but their spotless structures relegate any and all surprises to the back of the mix. But, between these too-orderly melodies and Rieger's often diffident delivery, there's simply not enough here to compel the kind of close listen you'd need to work out all of Sunlight's wrinkles. "The floor is not collapsing, the roof's not caving in" Rieger sings on "You're Never Gonna Go to Heaven". That's the trouble with Sunlight on the Moon; things are just fine, but 12 albums in, just fine's not quite fine enough.
