Lahs

After three records spent digging deep into the super-chill fantasy version of L.A., complete with surf guitars, Allah-Las do things a little differently on Lahs. The band still play with the relaxed style of four guys with nowhere to go and all the time in the world to not get there, but this time around they are looking outside of their comfort zone and trying some new things. Not only that, but theyve given their well-established sound a makeover -- stripping back at least three layers of reverb, bringing the vocals closer to the front, and allowing the drums to snap a little bit here and there. Along with this new sonic approach, they dig into a wider variety of styles, not just sticking to gauzy psych and sleepy surf music. Theres a little bit of slow-motion, last-call disco (Roco Ono); a rollicking near-novelty rocker (Keeping Dry) that has a beat so loose it feels like the drum kit is about to come apart; a singsongy experimental track (Royal Blues) thats driven by a rudimentary drum machine and some chanting; a bit of outre bossa nova (Electricity); and a whole bunch of songs that make it clear that they spent a lot of time listening to the Dead on their tour bus. Somewhere on one of those trips, they switched from guitars that felt lifted from a psychedelic Surfaris album to happily meandering lines that sound like they were cut from American Beauty at the last minute. The loping, good-natured, and slightly stoned feel of many of the records songs gives them a heavy Dead feel too; only a few have any of the drive and swagger that the best songs on the bands previous album Calico Review had. Even fewer have any of the murky melancholy of their earliest records. Its a big change all around, and for the most part, it works. A few of the frothy, almost goofy songs feel a little out of place, but the rest of the album manages to tap into the laid-back, barely breathing thing that the Allah-Las do so well. If its a little more disco-y or Dead-y here and there, thats okay since they manage to make it sound like they are folding the new styles into the groups esthetic instead of grafting disparate things together in an awkward way. There may be moments that give fans expecting another laid-back psych record pause, but on the whole the Allah-Las succeed in refurbing their template and coming up with something thats both extremely chill and interesting at the same time. ~ Tim Sendra

LAの4人組による4作目。3年ぶりのリリースを心待ちにしていたファンも少なくないはず。陶酔の境地に誘うサイケなフォーク・ロックがそんな期待に応える充実作。ポルトガル語で歌う2曲は、トロピカリアも連想させるという意味で、ベックの『Mutations』に通じるところも。ギター2本のアンサンブルはテレヴィジョンにも通じるギター・ロックとしても楽しめそうだ。
bounce (C)山口智男