Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Freelance Whales - Weathervanes (2010)

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Queens natives Freelance Whales released their debut album Weathervanes and it's nothing short of exquisitive. Each track slowly unfurls like the start of nice spring day blending seemless together while still maintaining their standalone quality. Lead track "Generator ^ 1st Floor" provides the first taste of what you can expect from the rest of the album. Evolving at a not-too slow pace, each instrument makes its presence known one after another, layered with tender love and care. The song gets halfway through before Judah Dadone vocals float over the dreamy haze to deliver the first definitive lyrics. "Hannah" shows off some of Dadone's songwriting prowess with him somehow slipping in the lyric "Please don't call me a playerhater" that'll have you marveling at how it fits there without drawing more attention to itself, distracting you from the rest of the song and is delivered in all seriousness. Clap-happy "Kilojoules" mixes love with chemistry and contains one of my favorite lyrics of the album: "I've arranged for your phobias to be performed by a string quartet". I have no idea what it means but it's delightfully poetic and the song is quite catchy. I could sit here and break down every song on the album for you but it's simply not necessary. The album function marvelously as whole and several of the songs are catchy enough to be popular in their own right.

Freelance Whales are true artists painting hypnotic musical trapestries with banjo, guitar, bass, drums, synthesizer, glockenspiel, and whatever else they can probably get their hands on. Fans of well-crafted indie masterpieces shouldn't hesistate to add Weathervanes to their collections. It just might be the best decision you make all day.

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