Every band is a kind of marriage. There's the constant balancing of your own preferences with those of your bandmates, the occasional spat, and intrusive friends, family members and Yoko-esque boy/girlfriends are like built-in in-laws. An onerous recording contract supplants the mortgage; fussy equipment replaces four-legged pets and (hopefully) two-legged babies; solo albums sit in for the "I need some space" weekend getaway to the spa. And bands, of course, splinter for all kinds of reasons financial, creative, and egoistic, just like half of all modern American marriages.
So imagine playing in a band with your spouse. It takes a certain kind of couple to enter into an artistic partnership without letting the conflict of marriage seep into the creative process. And when you make your music the way Portland, Oregon's Kevin and Anita Robinson do-- that is, without ever leaving your living room-- it's hard to imagine disagreements over which songs are garbage not impacting an overdubbing session just a little. Amazingly, though, the Robinsons rise above it all to pull together some ambitious and affecting indie pop, and Lovers, Lead the Way!, their second album in five years, is a relaxed, cohesive statement.
Though the duo does all of their own recording and production at home-- the album art features one especially telling shot of a mic'd amp next to the toilet-- this is not your traditional bedroom pop record. Indeed, it opens with an epic swell or piano, organ and Mellotron, carried along on Bonham-by-way-of-the-picket-fence drumming, finally paring back to the skittering programmed drums and analog synths of "Fashionably Lonely", which features Anita's pretty, understated alto bobbing amongst the hazy atmospherics.
The fuzzy bass and boy/girl harmonies of "One in Every Crowd" are going to get Viva Voce compared to Mates of State on many a critic's page, and the comparison's not too far off, though the Robinsons place much greater emphasis on texture and layering-- not to mention Anita's exquisite guitar playing. She reels off a frazzled, passionate solo on the Kevin-sung "Red D-Lish" over his "Strawberry Pet Sounds Forever" backing of Mellotron and clip-clopping percussion. Kevin's other showcase, "Brightest Part of Everyone", is incredible, his chilled-out double-tracked vocal easing through a shuffling mass of electric piano, fuzz bass and keyboards. The dense instrumentation gives way to nothing but Anita's angelic backing harmonies on the chorus, a brilliant dynamic shift that makes it one of several peaks on the album.
These two are clearly full of ideas, and they don't shy from exploring them, touching on new wave in the ping-ponging Moogs of "Wrecking Ball", prog pomposity in the towering, wah-bathed intro to "The Tiger & How We Tamed It", and the morphing post-rock textures on the instrumental "Yr Epic Heart", which features busy drumming, slightly out-of-tune bells, gurgling keys and some noisy, Ira Kaplan-ish fret fireworks from Anita. Closer "Let's Bend Light" is a noir thriller smothered in vibraphone tone clusters and ride cymbal, with Anita's vocals strutting through the shadows, offering impressionistic lines like, "All that we wasted is time/ When we could bend light/ And shape the room." So give credit where it's due. The Robinsons have navigated all the potential pratfalls of making music with one's mate with a deft, unified hand. Lovers, Lead the Way! is a fine slice of kitchen sink indie pop with atmosphere to spare-- this marriage begat one quiet stunner of an album.
