SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: PHANTOGRAM – MEMORY OF A DAY

PHANTOGRAM
MEMORY OF A DAY
BARSUK RECORDS

At one point in our recent past, Phantogram felt like the heir apparent to Portishead, a contemporary artist that bridged the critical divide between electro-pop and moody, brooding trip hop. They existed in the shadows of more popular artists of the day, but had carved out a sizable following in the wake of their excellent sophomore record, Voices (2013).

“I don’t like staying at home
When the moon is bleeding red
Woke up stoned in the backseat
From a dream where my teeth fell out of my head,”

sings Barthel on “You Don’t Get Me High Anymore”, a moody, melancholy pop song about addiction that feels like a fragmented and distant memory considering more banal recent efforts.

To be fair, it might not be a conscious transgression; Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter have been around long enough for multiple changes of the indie pop landscape. The old give-and-take between light electronica with weighty lyricism –a strength of Phantogram’s early successes–has been usurped by a precarious need to appease. On Memory Of A Day, Phantogram’s intellectual irony has become less singular and more cohesive. Some might call it complacency; the album is both more listenable, and less intimately engaging.

The single “All A Mystery” leaves no trace the minute it fades out. It’s a waltz with no rise to climax, a sonic snipe hunt. Phantogram once pleasured, teased, tempted, and lured the listener towards the potential for release in a dark corner. They were masters of awkward tension, and of the give-and-take between overt pleasantries and twisted messaging. That’s largely missing here.

The discotheque and trippy “Feedback Invisible” puts a gaggle of those engaging elements in place, but the Frankenstein tapestry fails to make interesting choices that would have made the track more than decent album filler on a record filled with such. Likewise, the twisted and cacophonic orchestral production on “I Wanna Know” devolves into hushed screams and a sense of latent agony; the thoughtful execution has been relegated to second-class status, something less than a fully-formed song.

There are definite highlights, fits, and spurts of magic that keep the record from slipping into disaffection. The best song on Memory Of A Day, “Attaway”, strikes the right minor chords, conflicted imagery and patience—a rise to a high-line electronic backdrop, a warm hook laid over top. The climax strikes exactly when this record desperately needs it.

On this collection of perfectly fine songs, Phantogram presents a safe slate of bright, forward-facing pop ditties that leave behind merely a trace of the sweaty complexities that made them buzzy or fascinating, and inspired a subsequent wave of heady electro-pop. A wave of greatness to which they can’t quite measure up.

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