Please Advise

Few bands have walked a path as winding as Beauty Pill, much less remained intact as the journey progressed. They were already deep into lineup changes and shifts in their sound when songwriter Chad Clark was diagnosed with a life-threatening heart condition in 2007. The recovery from that illness accounted for part of the 11-year gap between the bands 2004 debut and 2015s remarkable collision of genres and concepts on Beauty Pill Describes Things as They Are in 2015. Five years later, the four-song EP Please Advise takes the maxed-out electronic grooves and splintered pop songwriting of the last album in new directions. One of the first noticeable changes is the addition of new singer Erin Nelson, whose laser-guided vocals open the albums first song, Pardon Our Dust. Its a jittery and nervous-feeling tune, and the combination of Nelsons bright vocals and steady horn lines provide a foil for the claustrophobic drums and electronics that make up the songs rhythmic core. Its the kind of contradictory arrangement that Beauty Pill have been perfecting since their earliest days, and Nelsons monotone vocal delivery is appropriately at odds with the paranoid lyrical content. Tattooed Love Boys is another web of blissful organic pop interlaced with unexpected samples, jerky stops, and the occasional reversed drum loop. Hard to pin down as even generically post-rock, Beauty Pill dive headfirst into myriad clashing styles. Orchestral strings, brass, and woodwinds meet glitchy electronics and bumping, overblown drums on nearly every song. Rather than settle on one sound for too long, Beauty Pill continuously throws them all together. Though its only four songs long, each song carries a sense of abandon and letting go of control. The Damnedest Thing, in particular, ponders the uncertainty of existence. The tunes wobbly groove and explosions of John Zorn-esque arrangement outbursts as the song fades out support the drifting, unknowing feel of the lyrics. Throughout Please Advise, Beauty Pill seemingly embrace randomness. Close inspection of these songs, however, reveals a meticulously crafted sound so detailed that every clattering sample, weird lyric, and unexpected instrumental shift is placed with intention. ~ Fred Thomas