Drop Electric. Photo by Pasha Nowruzi.
By DCist contributor Catherine Lewis
Listeners who haven’t kept up with Drop Electric since the group’s 2010 debut Finding Color in the Ashes are in for a bit of a shock: the band’s second album Waking Up to the Fire trades dramatic, instrumental post-rock soundscapes for glitchier electronic tracks, adding synths and actual vocals(!) to their guitars and drums.
It’s quite a different sound for the quintet. Where the earlier album basked in serenity and conjured cinematic moments with its well-timed crescendos, the band’s new sound has a constant urgency, thanks to its relentless beats and driving keyboards. Above the nearly booty-shaking rhythms, Kristina Reznikov’s vocals sound more like Hope Sandoval‘s dryer moments in Mazzy Star than the ethereal airiness of Sigur Rós‘s Jónsi. If you’ve come here looking for expansive, dreamlike post-rock, you’ll have to look elsewhere.
Drop Electric can still capture a striking moment, though: “Higgs Boston” stirs up a moody, ominous feel with its overly sterile bleeps and Reznikov’s detached, indistinguishable lyrics. “Lucille” meshes a steady, driving beat with laid-back guitars and vocals, a pairing which seems incongruous on paper but oddly combines together to be one of the album’s most alluring tracks.
The problem with Waking Up to the Fire is that Drop Electric’s electro-pop sound grows repetitive quickly. Reznikov herself sounds bored and toneless on “Carl Pagan“, and the skittering beats on “Starfox” are a little too poppy for the song’s moody vibe. Three of the album’s 11 tracks clock in shorter than 2 minutes, making them mood-setting transition pieces that contribute to the overall feel of the album but aren’t particularly notable on their own. All of that makes Waking Up to the Fire feel far shorter than its 37 minute duration: a few songs are memorable over the rest, but most of the album just blurs together into one long keyboard explosion.
Oddly, the band closes the album with a track that’s moderately reminiscent of their debut. The instrumental “Among Dying Dreams” has a simpler, slower feel than the rest of the album, growing from a sparse opening to a smoldering crescendo of a piano melody accented by horns and, yes, glitchy percussion that’s a little too bold for the song’s brooding atmosphere. It sounds like one part old Drop Electric and one part new, closing Waking Up to the Fire on a bit of an identity crisis. It’s an odd postscript, leaving Drop Electric sounding as though it doesn’t quite know where it’s headed, when the rest of the album has such a clear — if at times tedious — sense of direction.
Waking Up to the Fire is out on Lefse Records.
