Discovery

LP

(XL)

Record Review by Amber Henson

Discovery’s new album LP might well be the defining album for hipsters.  It’s constructed of Rostam Batmanglij, keyboardist (and producer) of Vampire Weekend, and Wes Miles, lead singer of Ra Ra Riot.  Although you won’t find any acoustic guitars in this album’s ten tracks, there are a lot of lyrics that seem to speak directly to the dirty trust fund babies of New York.  The songs are about sleeping, trains, and breaking up because you just can’t find a way to move forward.  The electronic beats are harsh at times, almost too clubby to be original, but there’s something there, some intelligence, to make up for the occasional mind-numbing drum machine solos.

“And every text that I get from you is so, so serious.”  “And my forehead burned but I closed my eyes.”  “I need to wash my sheets or I will go insane.”  This album, all put together, could describe a wild, American Grafitti type of night for a twenty-two year old in our digital society.  The music sounds like Crystal Castles sometimes, Joy Division other times, and a little MGMT.  LP runs the gamut in electronica; it could even be labeled as a study in the subject.  But Batmanglij and Miles seem to know when to drop back and rely on pure human harmonies, something that both of their bands have achieved well.

Side projects are risky, but I think we as music consumers have begun to trust them more and more since The Postal Service showed up.  LP has its flaws: it becomes repetitive from time to time, some of the tones can be grating, and there’s a chance that it could become just a nice album to have around to spice up a mix CD.  But, as mentioned above, there is a clear intelligence to the album, in its steady delivery of complex beats, the knowing smile lyrics, and nods to the past (track eight is a cover of my favorite Jackson 5 song, “I Want You Back”).  And here is where I would totally throw in some clichéd pun about you "discovering" them, but I’ll spare us all from such cheesiness.  This time.