While Seattle's ill-named dance outfit United State of Electronica are gaining national attention for their fantastic live shows and fun self-titled release, the men of the group-- Jason Holstrom, Johnny Rock, Noah Weaver, and Peter Sali-- also perform as Wonderful, and their debut, God Bless Our Pad, offers lush dream-pop in the vein of The Flaming Lips, Cocteau Twins, and perhaps a more piano- and synth-centric Elephant 6. The album is for the most part uncompelling, but Wonderful's best moments here are in fact quite good, boasting the band members' abilities to write equally compelling dance and rock songs.
To Wonderful's credit, their songs are bristling with ideas. Perhaps from their U.S.E. tenure, the band seems to feel some sort of heightened responsibility to build and collapse these ideas with sub-radar subtlety and even some seriously high-contrast changes of face. Here's the thing, though: While, to an extent, U.S.E. can martial its sugary melodic fixations with the discipline of a big obnoxious dance beat, Wonderful both succeeds and fails precisely because its bright buxom sound is not kept in check. Piano replaces guitar almost entirely here, drummer Johnny Rock is pushed way back into the mix, vocalists take turns at falsetto, and on many songs, there's hardly any discernible low-end.
Couple these issues with predictable vocal harmonies (some vocoded) and sinfully dominant synth flourishes, and some of these songs are cheesy trainwrecks just begging to be picked up by Lifetime channel dramas. The harp-laden synth waltz schmaltz of "Ana Paradisimo", The vocoded Flaming Lips-gone-awry travesty "Romance & Freedom", and the Xiu Xiu-does-weddings slobber of "Hope Must Break You" all fall victim to their own cliches and Wonderful's desperate attempts to emote. Other tracks, like "Pagoda" and "Baby Boy Blue", pleasantly flirt with the late Elliott Smith's bouncier catalog. But meanwhile, "Golden Rays" might be a little too Beach Boys for even the Beach Boys, and unless strict attention is paid, "My How You Come Alive!" can sound exactly like the theme song to Three's Company.
All of which is a shame, since Wonderful absolutely nail a few songs here. These few seem to share their success from simple recourse to lazy melody and contrasting, high-energy rhythmic figures. Opener "Adrianne" is about par for God Bless Our Pad in this respect: Vocal melodies and saxophone harmonies soar atop a rhythm section banging out a tempo proceeding four times as fast, while with each movement the piano waxes nostalgic for the song's earlier moments. "Call Me Sunshine" is the album's best: Drums and bells start upbeat and stay there, providing firm ground for the song's cumulus mantra, "Call me sunshine/ Be my sunshine," and some intermittent hot-rodding on the bass to break from otherwise languor. The sheer performance energy on "Adrianne" and "Call Me Sunshine" could easily keep Wonderful as relevant as U.S.E.-- if they find a way to further capitalize on this energy, and depart from their willed submission to the tired sounds and musical cliche that riddle God Bless Our Pad.
