There's a pretty good chance that you didn't hear the Luyas' 2007 debut, Faker Death, when it came out-- and, in a way, that's a blessing for the Canadian quartet. It's a short, slight LP, with slack ambition and a slightly crunchy indie rock feel that sounds situated in the early 2000s. For the Luyas' second LP and Dead Oceans debut, Too Beautiful to Work, the band-- which carries distinct Northern cache thanks to the involvement of Bell Orchestre members Pietro Amato and Stefan Schneider-- enlisted a few notable names in the process: specifically, Owen Pallett, Arcade Fire's Sarah Neufeld, and sound-mangling saxophonist Colin Stetson.
Even if you omit those artists' contributions, Too Beautiful to Work is strikingly different from and more self-assured than its predecessor. That "Montreal sound" does rear its head at certain points-- if singer/guitarist Jessie Stein were relieved from her vocal duties, the lightly soaring anthemics of "Cold Canada" and "What Mercy Is" could easily be slotted in on a Bell Orchestre record (and the former carries a distant relation to the build of Pallett's own "This Is the Dream of Win and Regine"). Mostly, though, Too Beautiful to Work sounds taut yet spacey, as metronomic rhythms butt heads with floating melodies and atmospherics. At times, it comes across as a cleaner version of the jarring pop dissonance that Broadcast explored in their last few albums-- a comparison that's lent sad, heavy weight due to Stein's close vocal resemblance to late Broadcast singer Trish Keenan. When "Tiny Head" made the blog rounds last spring, the comparison made one long for new material from the UK act, at the very least; following Keenan's abrupt passing last month, the resemblance is now somewhat haunting, making the already self-contained Too Beautiful to Work sound absolutely claustrophobic.
Maybe too claustrophobic, as a matter of fact: Parsing Stein's lyrics suggests that there are raw nerves lurking behind the tightened face of Too Beautiful to Work. "I don't want to be a little girl," she sings on "I Need Mirrors", but elsewhere she speaks vaguely of self-sacrifice with little reward. Over the sparse, uneasy strings of "Canary", she depicts fantastical self-mutilation for the purpose of giving someone else a voice, later conceding that "anyone can talk" and issuing a haunting statement before the entrance of a creaky, moonlit horn: "I dream of drowning." On "Tiny Head", she wispily coos, "It's no use/ I'm confused," before clattering percussion crashes through. There's tension, but the album's relative neatness prevents that ominous feeling from developing into high-stakes drama. The record, then, turns out to be a fairly bloodless experience, a trait that suggests the Luyas should take heed of otherwise dangerous advice: A little violence never hurt anybody.
