Collective Psychosis Begone [Digipak]

Any indie rock album circa 2007 with song titles like "Raise the Flag of Your Sibling's Favorite Daydream" and "It's All Been Downhill Since the Talkies Started to Sing" makes one yearn for the simplicity of "Yeah" -- and it doesn't matter whether that means Usher or LCD Soundsystem. As it stands, Collective Psychosis Begone shows clearly that Hallelujah the Hills know their genre and ability and know them all too well -- indie rock as dramatic production and presentation, another logical end product that grows out of reference points like Mercury Rev's Deserter's Songs, the Flaming Lips from The Soft Bulletin on, and just about anything from either the Decemberists or Arcade Fire. It's less a question of exact sonic points of comparison as it is a desire to aim for the huge, the theatrical, and to ask that the epic swells and orchestrations of songs like "Sleeper Agent (Just Waking Up)" be recognized for the grandiosities that they are. Even the theoretically more stripped-down and catchy numbers like "Wave Backward to Massachusetts," which has a good-enough basic rhythmic propulsion to it, and "Slow Motion Records Broken at Breakneck Speeds" seem like they are all about projecting to the back row while a friend's Wes Anderson film knockoff plays on a screen behind them. Technically this is all perfectly fine -- arguably that is maybe part of the whole point, that something gets recognized for what it is -- and individually some songs have their specific desperately-clinging-to-something singalong strengths. But this version of rock & roll as high-school pageant writ large is something that will appeal only to those who want just that out of their music, rather than those who are looking for something that looks beyond certain self-imposed boundaries. ~ Ned Raggett