REVIEW: Evangelicals - The Evening Descends

12 comments

A good friend once told me that the sophomore slump was caused by everyone learning to play their instruments. Elvis Costello was a case in point. All the touring after the first album makes a band get more comfortable and proficient with their instruments so the second album has a tendency to become more of a showcase of what the band can do than well-crafted songwriting.

The latest band to fall victim to the dreaded slump is Oklahoma psych-rockers The Evangelicals. You may have seen their newest album, The Evening Descends, get recommended by P-fork. The Evangelicals fall into the tradition of post-Flaming Lips Oklahoma bands, which means they focus on effervescent melody and spacey instrumentation, cleverly merging the influences of The Beach Boys with the work of Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie. So Gone, The Evangelicals debut, came out in 2006 and was a beautifully crafted pop album with well-focused songs showing off the melodic songwriting that makes central Oklahoma something other than a Sooner-infested wasteland.

In The Evening Descends, The Evangelicals have shirked their songwriting focus in favor of a loose instrumentation with spiraling keys, weird spoken-word moments, and trippy guitar parts that threaten to send each song overboard rather than advance the song. Or, to put it another way, the songs sound like they're from space, not reaching toward space. Or, to put it another way, The Evangelicals went for the space part of Bowie and left Brian Wilson in the spaceship.

There are some beautiful moments in the album, the opening to "Midnight Vignette" for example where lush harmonies overtake and merge into intricate instrumentation. Or, the glorious keyboard riffs in "Skeleton Man" which, with the crashing cymbals, makes me return to that moment I heard The Soft Bulletin for the first time. But, these moments are overshadowed by the weird introduction to "Party Crashing" where the band reenacts the usage defibrillator with horrible British accents. It's easy to get lost in the beautiful melody, but The Evangelicals always seem to undercut it, and not in the good way. Maybe The Evangelicals will find their stride again, but for all the glorious moments, this album seems lost in the mess of harmony without anywhere to land.

12 comments:

  1. Couldn't disagree more. I loved it, nearly every cut, and I don't often agree with Pitchfork.

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  2. Maybe I'm spoiled after living in Tulsa for 4 years and hearing a bunch of bands that don't have The Evangelicals exposure do more with the sound, but I'll def. give this album another couple listens.

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  3. "Maybe I'm spoiled after living in Tulsa for 4 years and hearing a bunch of bands that don't have The Evangelicals exposure do more with the sound."

    Oh, you have got to be kidding.

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  4. I'm down for any sort of open discussion about this. I don't understand why I would be kidding.

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  5. So what bands are you referring to, Hank? And what "sound" do you mean? The sound Evangelicals creates is pretty damn original, so give us something more than a "I know someone who knows someone who. . ." kind of comment. Oh, and spoiled in TULSA? OK. I'm spoiled in Dallas, but there is nothing like Evangelicals here. I'm curious. AFter a few more listens what do you think? I'll be the first to say they have to grow on you.

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  6. I didn't know I gave a "I know someone who knows someone..." comment. But, honestly there's a bunch of Oklahoma bands who come out of that Flaming Lips-esque sound. Some notable Tulsa/Oklahoma bands that I'm referring to are Aqueduct, Ester Drang, and The Starlight Mints. Aqueduct's sound is more based on 80s pop ballads and the Evangelicals are more airy than some other bands, but I just happen to like the first album better. If you want more info on Ester Drang, I posted about them earlier.

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  7. Ok. Good bands, I agree. I already know about Ester Drang, and I appreciate their sound well enough. I like Evangelicals because I just think they're everything I used to like about bands like the Lips. However, I don't really think the Lips comparison is a correct one. Evangelicals are a brilliant "mess" of their own making! Thanks for the response.

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  8. I agree, Anon. I guess what I want a bit more out of the latest Evangelicals is a bit more craft in the mess. Keep Reading! I'd love to hear more opinions on some of our other stuff.

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  9. Yeah, yeah, let's just crap on this album because our favorite Tulsa bands aren't getting any attention.

    By any objective measure, it's a very good record and the vast majority of critical response illustrates that quite clearly.

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  10. Wow. It seems like everyone's taking this personally. Are you people employed by the Evangelicals? And since when is critical response - positive or negative - any sort of indication of the worth of a band? Sure, I happen to not like the album that much, but why don't you read what I wrote as opposed to being cavalier?

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