String Machine like to think of themselves as an extension of their surroundings: The septet split time between blue-collar Saxonburg, Pennsylvania and their homebase in perpetual “next big thing” Pittsburgh. On their second LP, the bucolic and bustling Death of the Neon, frontman David Beck derives visions of wrecked cars, broken humans, and natural decline from the faded farming towns that lie in between, carved up by developers who “name their housing plan Pasture Place… and the streets after the wildflowers that used to grow there.” But in these frozen fields, Beck sees an opportunity to give the socalist ideals of the past another go. String Machine are forward-thinking, but not futurists; progressive, but not revolutionary.
Though it featured many of the same personnel, their 2016 album Threads From the Youth Fossil was essentially Beck’s solo debut. On this new record, he functions as more of a community leader than an auteur, one voice among many. It’s easy enough to describe what String Machine sound like: Name any indie rock band that referred to themselves as a collective and/or featured more than six people on stage at all times. String Machine’s DIY studio Earthwalk, modeled after Elephant 6’s approach, is home to a couple dozen Pittsburgh-area artists who variously show up to contribute strings, synths, horns, backup vocals, and the occasional Crock-Pot. Otherwise, they present as a modern affair. “I could see if my band was featured in someone’s Instagram story/I could bide my time ’til the morning/Reliving my 30 seconds of glory,” Beck twangs in the opener, holding a dead phone in a busted tour van. His imagery reads tactile and pungent on the page—he is variably a spent parcel of bubble wrap, a shattered ornament, a rotting peach, “kimchi marinating in motor oil”—but it’s all pleasantly smoothed over with harmonies and strings.
In place of the 4-track psych and classic pop-rock of Neutral Milk Hotel or Olivia Tremor Control, String Machine favor polished post-rock swells, tricky song structures, and off-kilter time signatures that bring up inevitable comparisons to the World is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die or Saintseneca. But this band is emo only in their unabashed earnestness and their inclusion of a deceptively upbeat song about a dead dog. Whether it’s the stein-swinging chorales of “Old Mack,” the traces of digital freak-folk dotting “Engine / It’s Time,” or the mere presence of banjo, they evoke not just the chockablock sound of mid-’00s buzz bands like Annuals or Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s, but also that era’s affinity for wholesome handicraft. They recorded the album’s piano parts at a local church in the dead of winter, braving 20-degree temperatures and sustained by homemade curry.
Even if the comparisons are warranted and basically unavoidable, String Machine’s restrained maximalism defies expectations. They’re averse to overstatement, easy catharsis, or clutter for its own sake. “Engine / It’s Time” slowly bubbles up to a lather of manipulated vocals and strings that never boils over. The band white-knuckles their way through the anxious arc of “Eight Legged Dog” and takes a breather just at the point where fans of orchestral emo have been conditioned to expect a detonation. Exploratory mini-epics “Death of the Neon (Pt. 1, 2, & 3)” and “Pit of the Peach” capture barren Western Pennsylvania in the summer, taking the scenic route over sloping hills and through bleakly beautiful farmland in seemingly endless sunlight. Neither goes anywhere unfamiliar, but this is how Death of the Neon fulfills its aim of self-contained serenity. If Beck has successfully executed his vision of the album as a product of its environment, you’ll skip past the obvious genre signifiers and call it Americana.
