Even if only for a moment at a time, Efterklang have felt like the grandest pop band in the world. On each of the Danish band's first two albums, they've had flashes of melodrama, majesty, and melody capable of approaching indie's top tier-- the Arcade Fire's masterfully built crescendos, M83's epic electronic accessibility, Sufjan Stevens' pretty, piled-high themes.
Efterklang splice those little shots of splendor through Magic Chairs, their third LP and first for 4AD, too. Surveying just the first three tracks, certain spells are breathtaking. On album highlight and opener "The Modern Drift", loose, rattling drums puncture a canvas of pointillist piano and stretched strings. On "Alike", distant female vocals and a squiggling trumpet chase Casper Clausen through the third verse, demanding a sing-along. And on "I Was Playing Drums", a bass tone becomes both the bully and the bedrock, creating perfect suspense as it pushes through flitting violins and stuttering drums with one note and pulls them back into place with the next.
But the generous surroundings those moments enjoyed on Efterklang's previous LPs are largely absent on Magic Chairs. On the new album, aggressive editing aims more for pop clarity than musical intrigue. Despite the contributions of auxiliary members Heather and Peter Broderick, everything seems standard and safe. "Harmonics" feels like a tepid adult-contemporary take on Dirty Projectors, and "Raincoats" is a straight shot for the heart of college radio. The album's unabashed attempt at a hit, "Scandinavian Love", seems as if it hopes to pull U2 out of the stadium and into the theatre. "Human lips, stop loving like a boy," sings Clausen, dragging the limpid line over an array of violins and background vocals. It's the sort of ham-fisted pop that Efterklang used to combat. Only "The Modern Drift", which suggests Music for 18 Musicians repurposed into hero-rock, delights with uncertainty.
Slaraffenland, the excellent troupe of Danes that's often toured and collaborated with Efterklang, made a similar move on last year's We're on Your Side. Their previous record, Private Cinema, subdivided hooks with textural escapades that were innovative if not always well incorporated. We're on Your Side, though, seemed too aware of that criticism, focusing more on tightening the songs than teasing out the liberties that might have been taken with them. Magic Chairs just feels circumscribed, then, like the work of a band hoping to put the full weight of its big ensemble behind anthems bound for international audiences.
Most frustratingly, the songwriting is still here: Even if "The Soft Beating" rises to a romantic high in the most predictable fashion, you won't soon forget the choral proclamations in the coda. And though the path "Mirror, Mirror" takes to its climax is familiar and safe, its weepy confessions are no less memorable. So the songs are here now, but the accompaniment was there then. Let's hope Magic Chairs is as much terminal as it is transitional, meaning that next time, they'll get all of that grandness right.
