Alex Shields, the songwriter behind A Grave With No Name, is British, but you'd never guess it by his appearance. With long hair and a penchant for wearing Weezer tees, his look is straight out of 1990s alt America. Which fits, since A Grave With No Name (ostensibly a solo bedroom-pop project but now fleshed out as a three-piece) features many of the hallmarks of 90s guitar indie from this side of the pond-- Pavement slop, the crackle and fuzz of GBV, and so on. But Shields isn't a revisionist, more a mixed-genre collagist, and the other sounds he incorporates are decidedly of the moment-- lo-fi haze, hypnagogic pop pastiche, and gurgly aquatic sound effects are all part of his approach. In fact, if you wanted a time capsule of what a good chunk of 2009 and early 2010 sounded like, Mountain Debris could be it.
That might sound like a dig, but it's not. Shields is part of a crowded pack of artists working in this style-- think also Atlas Sound and Banjo or Freakout-- but his take is punchier than the others, yet still heavy on mood and atmosphere. With material thus far scattered on limited-run releases (a self-titled EP arrived last summer), Mountain Debris collects that earlier work alongside some newer tracks and functions as a handy guide on what the band does well and where it could stand to improve.
The album works its way through a variety of song types in short bursts and hangs together in part because it doesn't linger in one spot for too long. (At 16 tracks, it's still just a little over a half an hour long.) The standard vibe here is a spooky, overcast take on melodic guitar jangle, like C86 stranded out in the woods at night, but Shields and co. take plenty of detours to keep things interesting. Often the best stuff is the simplest, like the warm, encrusted melodies of "Sofia", which serves as a good example of how lo-fi production can be not just a textural effect but a way to add depth and intrigue to a song. (This is important, lo-fi upstarts!) There's a clear sense of loss and longing in this track, and that runs throughout the record-- most conspicuous on grainy shoegaze exercises like [#script:http://pitchfork.com/media/backend/js/tiny_mce/themes/advanced/langs/en.js]|||||| "Lavender" and "Silver".
Mountain Debris can feel scattered, quickly jumping from one idea to the next, yet that doesn't pose a problem until the final stretch. Through "Horses", this restless quality actually helps keep your attention. At that point and after, though, you get the sense that the band has run out of ideas and the album starts to stumble. "Horses" is shout-y and atonal, not particularly appealing, and the tracks that follow each have a similar fatal flaw: "Fire Island" is weirdly kind of proto-grunge meets mumbly lo-fi, "Chimes" is too wispy for its own good, and so forth. This stutter to a halt isn't an ideal way to end a record, but it's not quite enough to derail the strong moments that come before it. Mostly Mountain Debris is an encouraging listen, a solid introduction to a band that I'm sure we'll hear more from.
