Gorilla Manor, the debut album from L.A.'s Local Natives, features rustic and yearning vocals, three-part harmonies, clattering percussion, wiggly guitar leads, euphoric chanting, and a Talking Heads cover. In short, the Silver Lake quintet have followed indie rock's major players in recent years-- they knew how to dress for success in 2010. Great for them-- now, what's in it for you? Plenty as it turns out.
Local Natives have already gained a foothold in parts of Europe-- their album has received attention in the UK and they graced the cover of Scandinavia's Sonic magazine late last year-- at home in L.A., and online. With good reason too: Advance singles "Airplanes" and "Sun Hands" recalled elements of Dodos or the Fleet Foxes. The best comparison perhaps is that they're sort of a West Coast Grizzly Bear-- right down to naming an album after the location in which it was recorded. Yet whereas Grizzly Bear's Yellow House is a cozy, isolated New England seaside shack, Local Natives' Gorilla Manor is a squalid Orange County party pad.
At first listen that seems off-- the chops and compositional sense here are the most immediately impressive part of the album. But dig deeper and you realize Local Natives never lose sight of the pleasures of being a youthful rock band-- right down to themes of wanderlust and discovery. "Oh, to see it with my own eyes," goes to the central lyrics to album opener "Wide Eyes". This inquisitiveness and quest for self-knowledge may as well be the record's life-affirming and open-armed thesis statement.
Indeed, this optimism relishes experience and finds opportunity where others may see obstacles: Garage rocker "Camera Talk" initially reads like a harried travelogue ("We're running through the aisles/ Of the churches still in style"), but the [#script:http://pitchfork.com/media/backend/js/tiny_mce/themes/advanced/langs/en.js]|||||| band still comes off like they're living the dream-- " [#script:http://pitchfork.com/media/backend/js/tiny_mce/themes/advanced/langs/en.js]|||||| And even though I can't be sure/ Memory tells me that these times are worth working for." "Airplanes" is a tribute to one of the bandmember's pilot grandfather, and while the counterpoints of strings and piano are buoyant enough it's the evocative images (chopsticks from his time spent in Japan, a well-thumbed encyclopedia) that indicate his life was well-lived.
But even where the lyrics get more obtuse (a Skype exchange with an ex is likened to a "Cubism Dream"), there's almost always a strong pulse running through the busy, precise compositions: "Shape Shifter", for example, is about impressionistic themes of self-reckoning but the sentiment is also reflected in the song's arrangement. At certain points, it's Gorilla Manor's sludgiest track; at others, it's the most quicksilver and agile. The strings and harmonies of the glacial "Cards & Quarters" and "Who Knows, Who Cares?" are gorgeous, but drum rolls and washes of cymbal hint at imminent collapse. Only closer "Sticky Thread" offers calm.
So while the record's second half dials back the tempo, stuck in its midsection is a cover of the Talking Heads, hardly a band that would be considered "loose." "Warning Sign" isn't the most canonical of their songs, but taking it on is an audacious decision for a band that would be wise to let the comparisons come to them first. They retain the elasticity of the bassline and the general verse-chorus structure, but that's about it: David Byrne's pinprick vocals are treated with melodic contour and supple harmonies, the breakdown veers from nervous to joyfully emphatic, and the guitars soften around the edges. Whether it's "better" than the original is besides the point-- at least for four minutes, Local Natives take ownership of it, fully integrating what might have been an incompatible hard left turn into the record's seamless whole. True, we tend to bow at novelty and innovation, but Gorilla Manor proves to be a refreshing reminder of the pleasures of synthesis.
