The Dismemberment Plan cut the cord in 2003, worn down from the road, stalled out on recording the follow-up to 2001's Change. Bassist Eric Axelson formed Maritime with ex-Promise Ringers Davey von Bohlen and Dan Didier, then taught a little English. Drummer Joe Easley works at NASA; guitarist Jason Caddell is a sound engineer around D.C., and frontman Travis Morrison, after a couple solo efforts—one passable, one ghastly—temporarily retired from music, got a gig with HuffPo, and joined a choir. Most have married; drummer Joe Easley has a kid. In 2007, the Plan played a pair of benefit shows for Emergency & I producer/Jawbox guitarist J. Robbins' ailing son Cal, then embarked on a proper tour to coincide with the rerelease of their landmark Emergency LP. Rehearsals went well, then the songs started to come, and, well, here we are. Going on the piles of pre-release interviews, you might think all these changes, all this Life Stuff, would suffuse Uncanney Valley, the first Dismemberment Plan album in a dozen years, with a newfound maturity; they're not just older now, they're wiser, settled down, no longer mired in the harrowing innervisions and interpersonal dramas of their 20s. Fifteen seconds into Uncanney Valley, that impression starts to falter.
Opener "No One's Saying Nothing" gets going with "You hit the spacebar enough, and cocaine comes out—I really like this computer!" Closer "Let's Just Go to the Dogs Tonight" all but ends with Morrison chanting "When I say 'cluster,' you say 'fuck.'" In between, he dines on his fingernails, likens himself to "a fat man on drugs, drowning in hugs," and spouts off on the finer points of Madonna's art collection. These cornball jokes, bizarre tangents, and puzzling half-thoughts dominate Uncanney Valley, the group's long-awaited fifth LP; true, there are moments of clear-eyed introspection on Uncanney Valley, but they're fleeting at best, never quite enough to offset the feeling that Morrison and company have returned after all this time without a whole lot to say. Any promises of newfound maturity are hard to come by on Uncanney Valley, and even if they weren't, the time away has been tremendously unkind to Morrison's wordplay.
All over Uncanney Valley, Morrison—once one of indie rock's most incisive, identifiable lyricists—cracks wise, veers off erratically, shoehorns in dated slang or beside-the-point chanting. "Well, look who it is—been a little while since you been up in my 'biz," he sputters as "Waiting" whirrs to a start, coming off like a "cool dad" in a lousy sitcom. "I am not an inhibited man—try to keep it in my pants when I can," he admits on lowlight "White Collar White Trash", before rattling off a far-too-long list of places he's been "doin' it in." "Daddy Was a Real Good Dancer," reportedly inspired by Brian Eno's late-in-life discovery of his father's days as a drummer, hinges around a cringey couplet about "daddy's happy feet." What's more, while "Daddy" delves into the sacrifices one has to make for parenthood, by focusing on what's lost rather than celebrating what's gained, it's hard to be all that sympathetic. When this stuff isn't merely clunky, it's downright embarrassing, and on Uncanney Valley, it's just about everywhere. Morrison's never wanted for confidence, but much of Uncanney Valley plays out as if no one was willing to tell him no. Years ago, he proved incredibly adept at revealing uncomfortable truths: that living around more people can make you feel more alone, that smarts don't always equal satisfaction, that the party you wish they'd let you into is rarely the one you want to be at. But his clumsy, winking delivery throughout the barely revealing, only intermittently relatable Uncanney Valley too often stops short at uncomfortable.
While Morrison flails, the rest of the Plan simmers. Morrison and Caddell's melodies, alternately playful ("Waiting") and plaintive ("Lookin'"), aren't likely to surprise any Plan loyalists, but they're sturdy enough, packed with slippery little surprises. Rhythmically, though, Uncanney Valley too often feels listless, considerably less driving than even Change's more muted moments. Easley and Axelson, among indie rock's great low ends, seem relegated to the background, never allowed to explode the way they did so often throughout the Plan's initial run. When they do get a groove going, the music rattles and hums like like the Plan of old, but there's been a considerable downturn in the dramatic left-turns and precipice-taunting rave-ups that played up the tumult in Morrison's once-trenchant lyrics. The glammed-out stomp of "Go and Get It" is the set's big outlier; although the song itself, a one-size-fits-all motivational anthem, amounts to little more than one long thumb's up, the music's undeniably rousing. But the rest of Uncanney Valley's music plays to their strengths without risking enough to build on them, with most of the nuance blotted out by Morrison's overdone delivery.
It's not all bad; "Invisible", in particular, is an all-too-rare moment of cuticle-gnawing revelation. Over an escalating string sample, Morrison opens up. "I thought I'd be working in Midtown, a winner," he confesses; instead, he's riding the train from some workaday job to some outer borough, catching the faces of fellow would-be world-beaters in the passing cars. This is the Morrison of "The Jitters" or "Spider in the Snow" a few years down the line—sharp, self-aware, but still unsure how to get something going. Until he starts in on Madge's Jeff Koons stash, the regrets and remembrances outlined in "Living in Song" play a little like an over-the-shoulder sequel to "The City". "Lookin'" matches a domestic scene to a gentle, chiming groove, as a grateful, satisfied-sounding Morrison considers the kind of love that only gets better with time. Whenever Morrison takes stock of what he's got, the ungainly punchlines and time-wasting chants fall away, revealing lived-in maturity and genuine feeling. But these grown-up sentiments are the exception on Uncanney Valley.
The album was a risk; anytime a much-loved band returns from a long pause and tries to recapture some of the old magic, there's always the chance that they'll come up short. Morrison's desire to take chances is admirable, but his willingness to commit to every lousy idea doesn't make those ideas any easier to take. The still-brilliant Emergency & I and Change were built around the tensions between the people we are and the people we would like to be. But Uncanney Valley seems too bent on interrupting serious moments with corny jokes and bewildering asides to say much of anything about anyone else. Halfway through "Mexico City Christmas", Morrison blurts "Being a poet is a pretty good gig/ You fuck with the best stuff and keep the rest hid." But Morrison, one time poet laureate of brainy urbanite indie rockers, can barely get through a stanza on Uncanney Valley without tripping over his own words.
