I was given the hint to listen to this album by a waitress at the notoriously bad Lone Star. She saw I had a Grizzly Bear LP on the table and told me to check out Local Natives. To date, it’s the best service I have ever had at that restaurant.
In a year that was absent of bands that rely heavily on harmonies to build their sound, Local Natives picked up the slack. They not only filled the void, but pushed the bar further up.
While the three-part harmonies build a full sound around this album, it’s the use of breaths and pauses that really enunciate the vocals. Songs like Airplanes really take advantage of an extremely brief moment of silence to work like an extension of the percussion section. They use the complete opposite on tracks like Sun Hands shouting the lyrics as the song builds to a climax. I never really thought you could shout in harmony, but here we are.
In the traditional measure of percussion, I think you would be hard pressed to find a better use of it this year. Drummer Matt Frazier obviously has a hell of a metronome in his head. He can build extremely complex beats that sound tribal one moment before switching to a rock standard. That often resorts to the impression that there is more than one kit in play. If that’s the case, I’m not even mad…it’s well used and gives the album a huge kick in the ass for the better.
Gorilla Manor is an album you really can’t get bored of. I listened to it from that initial tip-off at its release through the summer. Now well into winter, I haven’t come close to tiring of it. It’s definitely an upbeat record but it has some slower songs that build into something much deeper.
Top tracks: Sun Hands, Shape Shifter, Camera Talk
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