That thing about a picture being worth a thousand words? Someone should remind Regina. The front cover of the Finnish indie pop band's fourth proper album, Soita Mulle (Finnish for "Call me"), is adorned with a beautiful black-and-white photo (taken by Megan Kathleen McIsaac) of two people lying down in a pastoral setting. Unfortunately, the ugly and carelessly placed typeface obscures and, in effect, blunts the image's aesthetic beauty. Obviously, the band has a need to claim ownership for the album's contents, but the image on its own so excellently represents Soita Mulle's sensual, arresting feel that it functions strongly as a statement of purpose. Largely, Regina are working within what many listeners will instantly recognize as the dreamy, limitless confines of shoegaze-- only, their take on it is less staticky and obscured than the way today's younger bands have approached the genre. Soita Mulle's most impressionistic moments sound clean and deep-- an approach similar to what stateside shoegazers School of Seven Bells did on last year's Disconnect From Desire-- providing space to wrap yourself within their compositions, rather than attempt to smother you with blistering, fuzzy noise.
This sound fits Regina like a glove, and the new look largely makes Soita Mulle their best record yet-- admittedly, an easy feat. Since 2005's Katso Maisemaa, the band's toyed with various genres and sounds just close enough to occasionally mix and mingle-- the cool allure of French yé-yé, snatches of downtempo dance music, Stereolab's bouncy warmth. 2009's U.S. debut, Puutarhatrilogia, marked their most consistent effort at that point, but Iisa Pykäri's thin, power-bereft voice resulted in her surroundings sounding occasionally chintzy and under-produced. On Soita Mulle, multi-instrumentalist/principal songwriter Mikko Pykäri's production hand is heavy on the lushness, resulting in something more full-bodied and robust in sound. And, the improvements that Iisa's made as a vocalist are not to be overlooked: the album's highlights find her dipping in and out of melodies, filling the air with her voice, and effortlessly unleashing torrents of Finnish syllables. When she lets out a sweet melodic sigh near the end of "Haluan Sinut", you breathe with her, and that's a good thing.
Of course, Regina being Regina, the band still does a bit of outside-the-lines genre exploration, and as on previous efforts, it doesn't always come out well. On one hand, the piping synths of "Ui Mun Luo" gel with the song's cosmopolitan shuffle; on the other, "Harjun Takaa" seems an attempt to embrace upwards-moving anthemic melodic structures, ending stuck on the tarmac instead. The misses scattered between Soita Mulle's hits make the album drag as a front-to-back listening experience-- and this record is nine tracks in under 35 minutes. Forget the cover art: the real tragedy about Soita Mulle is that Regina grab the brass ring of consistency for the first time in their career, and with excellent results-- they just can't seem to hold on the entire time.
