SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: HIGH LLAMAS – HEY PANDA

HIGH LLAMAS
HEY PANDA
DRAG CITY

The High Llamas are back with their first album in eight years. Hey Panda is creative from start to finish, with wild production and layered instrumentation. Some songs are quite interesting, especially the first two songs from the record. Unfortunately, the album’s creativity makes it bloated, irritating, and puzzling. Also, its heavy usage of vocal effects severely hurts many tracks.

Hey Panda is way too ambitious and trying to achieve multiple things simultaneously—unusual transitions from one style to another sporadically work. The alarming and random style changes often make tracks feel like they are all over the place. Chaos in instrumentation is not always bad, but there has to be some order and cohesion to the chaos, which Hey Panda does not seem to have, as there is almost no flow at all. “Hungriest Man” (featuring Bonnie “Prince” Billy), “How The Best Was Won” (featuring Bonnie “Prince” Billy), and “Stone Cold Slow” are creative tracks with potential. However, poor mixing and the unfocused complexity of the tracks come off as messy and bewildering.

One of the only tracks that seems to nail down the dynamic instrumentation is “Fall Off The Mountain”. The transition from soft acoustic guitar and bright synths to a sort of club song with big beats is executed superbly and smoothly. The entire track is bonkers, and it is such a fascinating time. Meanwhile, “Yoga Goat” demonstrates that less is more as its more minimalistic approach compared to other tracks from the record works wonders. It is so groovy and has a very funky and catchy guitar riff.

Another problem with the record is the vocals. There is a huge number of effects used on Sean O’Hagan’s vocals. When used in moderation, vocal effects, like auto-tune, can be a great tool. However, almost every track tries to incorporate it somehow into the mix with only “Hey Panda” and “Fall Off The Mountain” seeming to work. It rarely benefits any of the tracks; instead, it causes them to become super irritating, like in “Sisters Friends” (featuring Rae Morris) and “The Grade”. Auto-tune is used in a very aggravating way that takes you out of the track. For example, Rae Morris is exceptional on the former track, and the surreal jazz instrumentation is intriguing, but the auto-tune of O’Hagan’s vocals completely ruins all of the momentum the track had.

Overall, Hey Panda has a few good tracks, but its creativity is what hurts it the most. In trying to achieve too many things simultaneously, tracks become overstuffed. Furthermore, it also relies too heavily on auto-tune, making many tracks quite irritating.

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