Architecture In Helsinki: Now + 4EVA

ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI: NOW + 4EVA (2014)

1) In The Future; 2) When You Walk In The Room; 3) I Might Survive; 4) Dream A Little Crazy; 5) (Boom) 4EVA; 6) U Tell Me; 7) Echo; 8) Born To Convince You; 9) 2 Time; 10) April; 11) Before Tomorrow.

Okay, even I have to admit that the idea of crossing indie twee-pop with Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez sounds «totally batshit crazy» rather than «disgustingly commercial». But, in fact, this is exactly what Architecture In Helsinki goes after on their fifth album. Almost any of its songs could have been released by any of today's electropopping teen idols — the idea here being some­thing like, «say, what will happen if we take that glossy dance stuff and deconstruct it a bit, with fewer effects and overdubs, maybe even an occasional touch of lo-fi?..»

Consequently, guitars and non-electronic instruments are almost completely left out of the picture (with but one or two exceptions that I will touch upon later), but the vocal melodies are improved upon — at the risk of losing it, I'd say that the record probably has a higher percentage of catchy chorus hooks than any previous release by the band. However, it is way too late for this circum­stance to be of much help: these songs are catchy in a «Britney» manner, i. e. silly, vapid hooks devoid of humor, intelligence, or human emotion. On my third listen, I was already distinctively getting the feeling of sitting in a sanitized playground designed for little robot kids. If that was the band's intention, they succeeded admirably, but then this is one of those cases where «total adequacy of intent to realization» does not even begin to equal «good music».

Only two of the songs sound like they have anything to do with organic flesh and blood. ʽDream A Little Crazyʼ is an amusing party-oriented «drinking song», melodically a variation on ʽLouie Louieʼ (!) but successfully adding a carnivalesque touch to it. And the closing number ʽBefore Tomorrowʼ is a throwback to the 1970s funk-pop / disco scene that actually features ringing funky guitar riffs, a few lively brass parts, and a credible romantic-optimistic atmosphere that may suck you in without causing any permanent brain damage.

Everything else is... well... synthesizers, drum machines, digital soul distilled to the most primi­tive algorithms, and even Autotune-a-plenty. Everything in «homebrewn» indie mode, but that really don't make it «intertextual», «ironic», or «allegoric» unless you are a big, big friend of these guys and feel yourself obliged to come up with some sort of complex justification. ʽAprilʼ is easily one of the worst songs I have ever had the mispleasure of listening to for reviewing pur­poses — at least on their regular material they do not usually go beyond silly hopping, but this here is a faux-ecstatic autotuned electro-ballad. If it is supposed to be a parody on faux-ecstatic autotuned electro-ballads, they forgot to tell. Sounds pretty sincere to me, even coming from a band still named «Architecture In Helsinki».

In short, this is just one more example — but this time, one of the most obvious and outrageous — of «Eighties' nostalgia» laid on thick on the already relatively barren musical scene of the 2010s. At least when this kind of crappy dance-pop was made in the Eighties, it was celebrating fresh breakthroughs in technology, production, and cultural style: hicky, vapid, silly, but «pro­gressive» in their own way. But nostalgizing for idiocy? No thank you. Thumbs down. This is simply not fun any more, no matter how much they pretend to be having it.

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Architecture In Helsinki: Moment Bends

ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI: MOMENT BENDS (2011)

1) Desert Island; 2) Escapee; 3) Contact High; 4) W.O.W.; 5) Yr Go To; 6) Sleep Talkin'; 7) I Know Deep Down; 8) That Beep; 9) Denial Style; 10) Everything's Blue; 11) B4 3D.

Architecture in Helsinki's fourth album does revert some of the inauspicious changes witnessed on Places Like This — namely, it does not sound nearly as dumb and irritating, with significant­ly less emphasis on dated dance beats and idiot vocals: my guess is that Bird did pay attention to at least some of the original reviews, and understood that he went a little too far in his search for a new face for the band. Alas, though, neither is this a proper return to the potentially pleasant atmo­spherics of In Case We Die. Formally, it is more like a meticulously calculated averaged va­lue of both these albums — multiplied by a continuous lack of interest in improving the overall level of songwriting.

At least the early records told a tale of a fairyland child playground, and Places Like This told the tale of a dance floor for hopeless morons: you could see the former as «cute», and the latter as «awful». Moment Bends merges these notions and thoroughly neutralizes them, so that, for the first time in AiH history, I am utterly perplexed, as the album leaves me with zero emotional im­pressions, and I mean that seriously. I have no idea what the record is trying to say, why it exists, how it should be interpreted, whether it should be considered «art», etc., etc. My current opinion — subject to change, perhaps, but only if I decide to continue exploring the album further, which is not very likely — is that the band has simply lost its way, completely: having swerved from the experimental, but promising path right into a dense thicket, for no reason other than stupidity, they are now proceeding blindly, without the least idea of what it is they are doing.

In some historical situations, perhaps, such blind prancing can produce unexpectedly delightful results — but not if you are Cameron Bird and his followers. Take the first track, ʽDesert Islandʼ. It is put together as a ska-based number, but uses cold electronic tones and an equally «icy» vocal style: that is, a rhythmic basis normally used to express smily joy is overridden with stimulants of «cold beauty» — the two successfully kill off each other, and I have not even yet mentioned the general monotonousness and complete lack of attention-attracting melodic twists.

Going on to track No. 2, ʽEscapeeʼ, we find a simple, but «potentially efficient» rubber-springed synth-pop riff that eats up everything else about the song (including a vivacious funky guitar part that is only properly audible for about two bars), except for the multi-tracked vocals which try, a bit, to push you in the direction of escapist idealism, but hardly succeed — too glossy and plastic is the processing, too expressionless the singing. And, once again, it's just one repetitive idea bouncing up and down for the entire duration of the song.

As usual, those tunes that are vocally dominated by Sutherland are a trifle more accessible and enjoyable: ʽW.O.W.ʼ (which is actually short for ʽWalking On Waterʼ) sounds like Enya on am­phetamines, and at least its icy romanticism passes the «credible» mark. But even Sutherland ul­timately embarrasses herself on the «Prince-for-five-year-olds» bubbly dance groove of ʽThat Beepʼ and on the robotic electro-funk of ʽDenial Styleʼ.

Actually, the phrase «significantly less emphasis on the dance beats» that I used above by no means is supposed to say that the dance beats have gone away — on the contrary, about 80% of the album can still be formally qualified as «dance-pop». The difference is that the beats are get­ting softer, and, most importantly, no longer stimulate the singers into behaving like a bunch of overworked DJs with no sense of taste or measure. But for some weird reason, they still insist on having a «body-oriented» underbelly to most of these tunes — even if, whatever that particular essence of Architecture In Helsinki could be, it is not in any way related to dance music. It's as if, oh, I don't know, Bob Dylan got so infatuated with Italian opera that he would try to imitate Pavarotti on every one of his records, ignoring the critical horror and the dwindling record sales. Same type of silliness, if on a smaller scale — quite a natural cause for a thumbs down.

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Architecture In Helsinki: Places Like This

ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI: PLACES LIKE THIS (2007)

1) Red Turned White; 2) Heart It Races; 3) Hold Music; 4) Feather In A Baseball Cap; 5) Underwater; 6) Like It Or Not; 7) Debbie; 8) Lazy (Lazy); 9) Nothing's Wrong; 10) Same Old Innocence.

In 2006, Architecture In Helsinki parted ways with two of their former members (Tara Shackell and Isobel Knowles), drastically reducing their brass section — not a big problem, as the slots were occupied by an even larger selection of session musicians as soon as the time was ripe for the recording of their third album. A much bigger problem is that the third album introduces se­rious change to their basic style — a change for the worse, which, given AiH's already evident struggle to maintain their own face, means a downright failure.

To put it bluntly, Cameron Bird had suddenly decided that AiH need to start thinking of them­selves as a rock band, thinking along the lines of his (presumably) childhood idols from the pop-punk, New Wave, and electro-funk departments — the accursed «1980s nostalgia», the great bane of the 2000s indie movement, hits again with full devastating force. Consequently, ʽRed Turned Whiteʼ is AiH working à la Prince; ʽHold Musicʼ is AiH working à la Talking Heads; ʽLazyʼ is AiH working à la... UB40? Something like that. ʽSame Old Innocenceʼ is a most decep­tive title to finish off the record with — for the most part, Places Like This is busy chasing out the «same old innocence» of the band's first two LPs, and replacing it with dance beats, fast grooves, and a drunk, mildly surrealist, party atmosphere.

I am not saying that such a transformation could not succeed in theory. But there are two huge, purely practical problems that prevent that theory from working. First, as many other reviewers have noted before, we have here a complete shift in singing style: not only do Bird's vocals now occupy most of the space (largely ushering out the generally far more agreeable leads from Su­ther­land), but he has also switched from psychedelic hushes, murmurs, and whispers to screaming and barking, and there are few things more irritating in this world than to have to listen to an un­skilled screamer and barker, unable to properly align his vocal noise with the general atmosphere of the composition or the entire album. When David Byrne played the «paranoid intellectual idiot» part on the early Heads records, he did it credibly, both through his own singing and the perfect agreement with the music that surrounded it. When Bird tries to do the same on ʽHold Musicʼ, he seems to only respect the «idiot» part — there is nothing paranoid or intellectual about his effort. No meaning at all, for that matter, just an empty form.

Second, this is still the same old Architecture In Helsinki — in that they still haven't figured out a proper way to come up with memorable songs. And now that the original aura has dissipated, it is unclear what exactly should justify listening to something like ʽRed Turned Whiteʼ. The openly annoy­ing vocals? The playful, but emotionless synth patterns? The lack of a clear opposition be­tween verse and chorus? The predictably incomprehensible lyrics? Whatever they wanted to say with this song, it seems to me that they did not manage to say it in a language I understand, either on the sensual or the intellectual level. And the same goes for 90% of this album.

Here are the minimal bits and pieces that did manage to speak out. Number one: the high-pitched, swirling, supernatural vocal harmonies on ʽHeart It Racesʼ (slightly Arcade Fire-like in style). Number two: some peculiarities of the arrangement on ʽUnderwaterʼ that really manage to con­vey an «underwater» atmosphere (not that this is in any way original in 2007) — the song in ge­neral is arguably the closest in spirit to the «proper» AiH. Number three: cute pop guitar interplay at the end of ʽLazyʼ. Number four: big relief when the whole thing is over — and an even bigger thank you for the fact that it only barely runs over 30 minutes.

In all, this is one of the most displeasing transitions from «mediocrity with a promise» to «embar­rassment without redemption». What is most offensive about the whole enterprise, of course, is that the entire record still has a defiantly «artsy» feel — the band retains their multi-instrumental kitsch, the complexity of compositions, the inscrutability of the lyrics. But as far as my heart and mind conspire to tell me, there is not an ounce of genuine substance or meaning in the whole thing. One could, perhaps, see a bunch of college freshmen getting high to this kind of thing, party spirit and all. However, they'd still have to be sorry about it the morning after the party. A disgusted, rather than simply dazed and confused, thumbs down here.

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Architecture In Helsinki: In Case We Die

ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI: IN CASE WE DIE (2005)

1) Neverevereverdid; 2) It'5!; 3) Tiny Paintings; 4) Wishbone; 5) Maybe You Can Owe Me; 6) Do The Whirlwind; 7) In Case We Die; 8) The Cemetery; 9) Frenchy, I'm Faking; 10) Need To Shout; 11) Rendezvous: Potrero Hill; 12) What's In Store?

Maybe they did not follow the optimal strategy (as in, «hire a responsible songwriter»), but there has been a strategic change all the same, and a good one: push up the energy level. The creative, joyful, intelligent kids of Fingers Crossed, sitting in their living-rooms and making psychedelic paintings on wallpaper, are now running out into the yards, so that they can take part in active games and dispel the «lonesome nerd» tag that one could very easily have attached to them just two years ago. In other words — In Case We Die, we are going to leave behind a pretty lively trace of our former existence.

All the basic ingredients remain the same: Architecture In Helsinki are still an eight-piece band, with brass and string instruments mattering as much as, if not more than, acoustic and electric guitars, friendly electronics, and the male / female contrast between core members (Cameron Bird and Kellie Sutherland). Just like before, they are unwilling to learn to seriously play those instru­ments, although they do try to attack the songwriting task with a little more responsibility; just like before, they seem to regard their mission as that of building a powerful kaleidoscope of color­ful sounds, preferring to quickly abandon any idea before it actually starts working, rather than stick around it for too much time. Fairies dancing at the bottom of the garden, right?

Even the bell chime that opens the album is soft and kiddish — nothing like the deep, chilly toll of Lennon's ʽMotherʼ or AC/DC's ʽHells Bellsʼ — and what it sets out to announce is a small, cutesy «twee-symphony» (ʽNeverevereverdidʼ), spreading its three parts (rhythmless atmospheric intro; slow, slightly dissonant, march; fast, exuberant kiddie song) over five minutes and stating all the important points in the process. The build-up, climax, and release are quite thoughtfully controlled, and if I had been more in love with the essential ideology of the band, ʽNeverever­everdidʼ would probably be the perfect AiH composition for me. «Yes for toddlers», perhaps. The major problem is that a real toddler would be unlikely to appreciate this twee-symphony, and it is not clear whether it truly deserves to wake the internal toddler lurking inside the grown-up lis­tener, because all of this supposedly innocent, free-flowing joy emanating from the song still feels a little forced and artificial.

ʽIt'5!ʼ (sic), compressing its point to two rather than five minutes, is also a perfect encapsulation of the band's pseudo-message. Minimalistic, very loosely joined at all of its harmonic hips, with lyrics that make neither literal nor coherent figurative sense, and a vocal hook that transforms indie mumble into cheerleader scream — it will either lure you in with its absurdist naïveness and baby innocence, or deeply offend you by not making artistic sense. On the other hand, there is no use getting offended at a bunch of silly prancing on the lawn, particularly since there is nothing to suggest that the band regards its art as something more deep and meaningful than that.

What really does sadden me is that, with such a vast amount of different people, instruments, and musical ideas at their disposal, the mood and emotional impact are so similar on just about every track — so much so that commenting on individual tracks seems essentially useless, even if this does happen to be the band's best album. Admittedly, ʽDo The Whirlwindʼ has a gruffer keyboard tone than usual, and is almost on the verge of becoming a gutsy «electrofunk» number (I detect a little bit of Prince influence here), but even that gets scrambled midway through, as the vocals shift from stern to sissy, and chimes and cellos chase the dance beat away. Everything else stays firmly within the confines of the exact same fairyland playground. («Playful pop majesty» was the expression used by the All-Music Guide reviewer, which I heartily disagree with — playful, definitely, pop, most likely, but there is about as much «majesty» in this album as there usually may be perceived in a typical infant).

Still, by speeding up the tempos (ʽThe Cemeteryʼ), introducing a wee bit more screechy / croaky electric riffs (ʽFrenchy, I'm Fakingʼ), and stirring up inevitable memories of SMiLE (to which this album relates like a clumsy, inexperienced, but admiring and aspiring younger brother), In Case We Die manages to wrench out a thumbs up — want it or not, it has its own face, and that face is curious to look upon, even if it is so hard to decide whether you like it or not, or whether it is a natural face or the result of one too many plastic surgeries. Perhaps if Frank Zappa wanted to deconstruct Mother Goose, the end product would look something like that — then again, know­ing Frank, it probably wouldn't: In Case We Die is much too safe, too clean, too sterile for the likes of real naughty music revolutionaries.

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Architecture In Helsinki: Fingers Crossed

ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI: FINGERS CROSSED (2003)

1) One Heavy February; 2) Souvenirs; 3) Imaginary Ordinary; 4) Scissor Paper Rock; 5) To And Fro; 6) Spring 2008; 7) The Owls Go; 8) Fumble; 9) Kindling; 10) It's Almost A Trap; 11) Like A Call; 12) Where You've Been Hiding; 13) City Calm Down; 14) Vanishing.

Can an Australian band that calls itself «Architecture In Helsinki» be any good? It probably can, but it better be real good, then, since it takes an awful lot of goodness to redeem the original sin of calling oneself «Architecture In Helsinki» when not only do you not live in Helsinki, but you live so far away from Helsinki, you might as well call yourself «Architecture In Eldorado» and get away with it on a much firmer basis. In other words, these guys are so ferociously «indie-indie» even before you hear them play a single note, they have to work double hard to earn our pardon, and triple hard to earn our admiration.

The good news is that they try, and the bad news is that they do not try hard enough — in fact, their major purpose seems, above all, to demonstrate their sworn allegiance to generic indie aes­thetics. There are five primary and three secondary members in the band, playing everything from guitars to electronics to woodwinds and brass to melodica to xylophone — and, of course, there is not a single professional, let alone virtuoso, musician anywhere in sight. Vocals are democrati­cally divided between boys and girls — and, of course, there is not a single unique vocal tone or style anywhere in sight, although everything sounds pleasant. The songs are short (we don't want to seem too pretentious), the lyrics are psychedelically introspective (we do want to seem magical and mysterious), and the arrangements are multi-layered (the more instruments we play at the same time, the less people will notice that we cannot play any of them).

Did this sound like I just described Arcade Fire? Well, not quite — Arcade Fire are not afraid of letting their songs run for more than three minutes, they do have relatively unique and easily re­cognizable vocal styles, and their lyrics actually make sense and show plenty of aching relevance. Most importantly, Arcade Fire are quite heavily grounded in reality, and these guys are twee-ori­ented, riding on rose-colored clouds until the pants are soaking wet. (To make matters worse, none of this cloud-riding has anything to do with architecture in Helsinki — much of which is conceptually following Saint-Petersburg, and could, with some reservations, be called «light», but not light enough to associate itself with this kind of music).

Nevertheless, Fingers Crossed does manage to give us an interesting, not entirely predictable kind of sound. The overall vibe is that of «little-angelish» innocence, due to all the xylophones, glockenspiels, high-pitched electronics, quasi-surf guitars, and pseudo-pre-pubescent vocals. This is not news in itself, but it is made into news by an unusually equal-rights approach to all the separate elements of the band's sound: retro-pop guitar, futuristic electronics, marching band brass combos, street-player style wind-up instruments, and folk-pop singing. With this particular brand of synthesis, Architecture In Helsinki have no problem carving themselves out their own identity — even if nobody needs it, you can't at least deny it's there somewhere.

Alas, in the end it all fails for one simple — and way too common — reason: not a single member of the eight-piece band happens to be an accomplished, or even simply talented songwriter. This is not avantagarde music: they do know how to put together strings of notes so that they end up with traditional rhythmics, harmony and melody. Throw in the rose-cloudy style of arrangement, and it's all nice and pretty and you sort of begin to feel bad about criticizing this kind of music — as if you were taking candy from a baby or something. But really and honestly, there is hardly a single song on here that has anything memorable about it. It's all atmosphere, from top to bottom, and on a record that presumably consists of two-and-a-half-minute long pop songs, «pure atmos­phere» is like a humiliating rape of your expectations.

The only time where the band did strike a sensitive nerve was on ʽThe Owls Goʼ, whose repeti­tive, childish chorus, sung in feather-light mode by Kellie Sutherland (the band's resident clarinet and God-knows-what-else player), accidentally embottles an ounce of genuine protective tender­ness (it also constitutes a terrific case of misheard lyrics for me — until I looked it up, the line "finding a replacement with a heart sedated" kept coming across as "finding a replacement for the House of David", which, I guarantee it, would give the whole song an entirely different, and far more profound, meaning). In contrast, the verses, sung by one of the band's lead vocalists (pro­bably Cameron Bird, the guitar player), are completely blank and colorless.

Every now and then, something will faintly register on the radar, like a much weaker, fluffier va­riant of Broadcast (ʽScissor Paper Rockʼ, where it is clearly seen how Sutherland can come across as a shallower copy of Trish Keenan), or a watered-down imitation, perhaps a subconscious one, of the kaleidoscopic electronics of Animal Collective (ʽImaginary Ordinaryʼ), or a Beirut-like use of the brass section to generate a meekly East European flair (ʽTo And Froʼ). Nothing in these attempts is offensive or even «pathetic», because it is all so innocent and generally unpretentious: when, at the very beginning of the album, the chorus asks us, "Have we missed an opportunity?" (ʽSouvenirsʼ), you probably wouldn't even want to upset the kids with a straightforwardly nega­tive answer. But — shh, don't tell anybody in the band, but this is exactly what it is about: a missed opportunity.

I know how it could have all worked: had the band refrained from trying to write original songs and, instead, devoted itself to covering superior material, recasting it in this pretty, cloud-a-licious, modestly innovative mold, Fingers Crossed might have passed for a charming and maybe even thought-stimulating curio. As it is, the album earned mixed reviews from the very beginning, and although the band did manage to achieve minor cult status among certain circles of twee-pop lovers, it seems quite just that they never made it to the big leagues.

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