On the strength of their first three records, and particularly their still-astonishing last, The New Romance, I've taken to thinking of Pretty Girls Make Graves as probably the best rock band going around today (with a partial caveat re Radiohead), so there's been a fair bit of anticipation in these quarters regarding the newie, Élan Vital. First track "The Nocturnal House" hit the web a while ago, and while I liked it, the shift in sound left me only guardedly optimistic about the album to follow it; hearing a few more songs off the lp in the meantime reinforced that feeling (although seeing them at the laneway festival produced a bit of a spike in excitement). Now, having at last got the record itself, I'm some way towards remembering why I liked the band so much in the first place, despite all of the changes that Élan Vital signals and embodies.
There definitely is a change here (but no more of a step than that from Good Health to The New Romance, I reckon), and a lot of it probably comes down to the lineup change they've had - losing a guitarist and replacing him with a keyboardist when the most distinctive aspect of your sound had previously been an intricate dual-guitar attack couldn't help but make a difference. Moreover, in has come a different approach to songwriting and a more polished and more echoey, less ragged and immediate vocal approach from Zollo (though perhaps she's just become a more accomplished singer)...the songs on Élan Vital are generally more 'thuddy' than previously, getting their propulsion and momentum from the keyboards and basslines more than from the spiky, duelling post-punk guitars that have always been the band's signature.
But do I like this new sound? I do, but damnit, it's not as good as their old stuff - for me, the three standout tracks are "The Nocturnal House", "Pyrite Pedestal" and "Selling The Wind" (and, in a different way, the epic 'fm radio cut up and put back together' closing provided by "Bullet Charm"), which are all urgent, surging calls to arms and also probably the three which (along, maybe, with the helter-skelter stop-starts of "The Magic Hour") come closest to invoking the old fire and intent. That said, even those three are decorated, and in some cases fundamentally underlaid, by keys, whistles, accordion, &c, and I think they succeed ("Selling The Wind" in particular) with the aid of those additions rather than despite them - which suggests that the directions in which they're stretching themselves aren't entirely devoid of promise.
I don't know, though - it's hard to imagine what the forlorn Eno-isms of "Pearls On A Plate", say, or the ominous urban atmospherics of "Pictures Of A Night Scene", could be transitional steps towards...it seems as if the band have, in these dimensions, already taken things as far as they can, and with only partial success. Points for ambition, and at least since the last lp there's been a noticeably 'art' slant to their rock in any case, and there are some good moments even on this most recent album, but even so Élan Vital isn't overwhelming, and I don't know where this all leaves the band going forward.
