The National’s Matt Berninger and his gloomy baritone are known for fronting a band that played its song “Sorrow” for six hours straight. He’s not someone you’d usually call “fun.”
So it’s shocking that the title track of “Return to the Moon,” the debut album from EL VY (an indie superduo made up of Berninger and Brent Knopf of Ramona Falls and formerly Menomena), makes Berninger sound like a blast. The song, which also has a confusing parenthetical tacked on (“[Political Song for Didi Bloome to Sing, with Crescendo]”), boasts one of the tightest hooks Berninger has ever written, topped with Knopf’s stuttering and jangly guitar riffs that are almost as catchy as the chorus.
Sadly, the rest of the offerings from EL VY—which, according to a bizarre press release, is “pronounced like a plural of Elvis; rhymes with ‘hell pie’ “—get decidedly stranger, for better and worse. Berninger always has been in the Jeff Tweedy “American aquarium drinker” school of abstract lyrics, and there are some serious head-scratchers throughout this record. He utilizes goofy delivery on “I’m the Man to Be,” a song that, according to Berninger, takes the perspective of a “pathetic self-aggrandizing rocker alone in his hotel room,” with, “I’ll be the one in the lobby in the collared fuck me shirt/The green one.” On the dreamy, Ural Thomas-featuring “Sleeping Light,” Berninger exclaims, “Well, hallelujah” because “There’s some great ideas on my blue ceiling.”
Even the arrangements are all over the place. There’s airy and atmospheric synth-pop (the moody highlight “No Time to Crank the Sun”), spooky background vocals and creepy organs (“Silent Ivy Hotel”) and even muscular stadium rock (“Happiness, Missouri”). “Sad Case” has a blast of barreling, down-tuned guitars that sound like something out of an old Thrice song, which is definitely not a band I expected to name-drop in this review.
You can appreciate Berninger and Knopf’s obvious ease with each other, as well as their tendency to get quirky and experiment. Yet despite billing itself as “not a replacement or a side project, but a glimpse into an alternate musical universe,” EL VY still falls victim to all the problems facing almost every side project or replacement: You’ll probably just want to listen to their main bands instead.
2 stars (out of four)
In concert: Nov. 19 at Metro
More Top Picks Best Usb C Hubs For Laptops
[email protected], @joshhterry
For more music, click here.
Want to learn how to brew beer or make an awesome cocktail? Click here to teach yourself through the RedEye Skillz page.