Earlimart were weirder once. A decade or so back, former scrappers Aaron Espinoza and Ariana Murray set out to reshape their sharp-edged sound into something finer, more regal. After paring themselves down to a duo on 2007's Mentor Tormentor, the entire operation's grown only more streamlined: freer from detours, less and less fond of dissonance, nary a note out of place or a chorus left to run on too long. Their almost classicist way with melody has proved a double-edged sword for the band; the craft's admirable, the detail-work first rate, but their increasing insistence on everything-in-its-right-place perfectionism (and their increasing unwillingness to push things past the midtempo) make even the sturdiest of their late-period efforts awfully hard to get excited about. System Preferences-- their seventh LP, and first in four years-- is the latest in what's becoming a long line of sumptuously arranged, immaculately written, laudably restrained, risk-averse Earlimart LPs that winds up earning most of its flaws from Earlimart's pursuit of flawnessness.
"U&Me" gets things going slowly, with Espinoza making "one last request: forget the past." It's advice he doesn't seem particularly keen on taking; lest you doubt Earlimart's bona fides when it comes to pop history, System Preferences is sprinkled with lyrical nods to a couple of Beatles songs, one from Earlimart's old pal Elliott Smith's XO, and, curiously, Velvet Underground skronksterpiece White Light/White Heat. Heavy-lidded lead single "10 Years" owes something to the Breeders, and "I'm Safe Inside" has a bit of that overcast Summerteeth vibe. But System Preferences is so well-steeped in its influences-- capital-P pop, mostly of the California- or chamber- variety-- it rarely sounds too much like anybody for very long. But therein lies the problem: the melodies at the heart of System Preferences' songs-- warm, uncomplicated, straight down the middle-- seem so unwilling to ruffle any feathers that they don't end up doing much of anything.
Espinoza's studio know-how's been the saving grace of many a lackluster Earlimart tune going back at least as far as their 2003 peak Everyone Down Here, and he leaves every surface on System Preferences sparkling. Woozy mellotrons and flickering harpsichords play around the edges; each sound's treated or troubled in some way or another. While tarting up their lesser songs has gotten Earlimart through some rough patches in the past, lots of System Preferences' trickery ends up working against it; the fingerpicked flutter of "Sweater Weather" and the single-lane power-pop of the horribly named "Internet Summer" are both so bright, they're blinding, and many songs feature just a wisp of a countermelody you wish they'd have run with instead of burying in the back of the mix. Still, System Preferences' abundance of surface pleasures give you something to go on when the songs themselves don't; the downtrodden shuffle of "Crestline, CA." starts out promisingly enough, but when it slumps into its chorus in an almost grudging fashion, its dazzling arrangement's about all you're left with. "Lovely Mary Ann", a psychedelicized post-doo wop number in the vein of Paul McCartney's "Oh Darlin", feels like a copy of a copy; you can make out the outlines, but much of the definition's gone. Espinoza's running his high everydude voice through a lot less processing on System Preferences; they wind up sounding like guide vocals, rough outlines in serious need of some personality. If nothing else, this album makes it clearer than ever that Murray's the better singer here, and her two lead vocals-- "10 Years," "Get Used to the Sound"-- all but run away with the album.
An orchestral swirl eventually swallows closer "Over Andover"; birds chirp, a folder is dragged into an electronic dustbin, followed by the familiar slurp of the "Empty Trash" sound. This is a dare; Espinoza and Murray know their music isn't fit for one-and-done consumption, that its merits tend to reveal themselves with a little patience. But, while prolonged exposure's been good to past Earlimart LPs, it's not really the case with System Preferences. In pursuit of sophistication, everything's gotten so carefully contoured, so rounded off at the edges, that you just kind of slide right off of it. While it's never less than pleasant, it's rarely all that much more. The overly fussy, played-too-safe System Preferences seems to be begging for a bit of Earlimart's old weirdness, an oddly placed bridge, a couple of bum notes, a "Burning the Cow", something. Without it, this record winds up feeling a little too perfect for its own good.
