Baltimore experimental indie artist Noah Lennox (aka Panda
Bear) has put out some phenomenal albums throughout his career – but this is
not one of those phenomenal albums. The only phenomenon here is the fact an
artist as talented and creative as Noah could sink to such an artistic low as
this.
Deciding to depart from the death-themed psychedelia of his last album, Noah delivers a stripped-back
record using water as the running theme. There are track titles such as ‘Dolphins’
and lyrical references to ‘tidings’, ‘ripples’ and ‘the coast’. Basically,
Panda Bear has gone seapunk.
Sadly, the instrumentation doesn’t really adhere to this bubbly
water theme - in fact, the production is about dry as the Atacama desert. The squelchy
synthesizers have been traded in for stiff guitars made up of feebly-strummed basic
chords, accompanied by some sparse 808s. A few water drip sound effects as on ‘Dolphin’
and ‘Crescendo’ are all we get in terms of water-themed production, and that’s
not enough to quench my thirst. I expect whale song and boat horns and sonar
bleeps – not just a few drip sounds (of all the water-themed sounds to choose,
they’re probably the most irritating too – in fact, the drips on ‘Dolphin’ are
akin to Chinese water torture).
As for Noah’s vocals, they’re no longer drenched in reverb. Instead,
he’s decided to soak them in auto-tune. He’s not the first indie singer to
embrace auto-tune - Sufjan Stevens, Wayne Coyne and Julian Casablancas have all
dabbled in it. I’m not sure why indie singers are now wanting to sound like T-Pain.
I just hope this trend is short-lived, because if indie isn’t a safe-haven from
auto-tune, then nowhere is. It also doesn’t help that Noah’s voice sounds shakier
with pitch correction. If anything, auto-tune has miraculously detuned his
voice, and it’s painful to listen to.
To top all this off, the songwriting on Buoys is atrocious. There’s absolutely no direction to these tracks
– no hooks, no build ups, no change ups. Every track drifts nowhere, which I
could just about tolerate were each track different to the next, but no they
all sound pretty much identical. ‘Inner Monologue’ is the only track that breaks
the monotony with some beautiful melancholy guitars and effects-slathered Beatles-esque
vocals, even if the sound effects of the woman sobbing over the top are a
little unnecessary.
So, all in all, this is not my favourite Panda Bear album. Buoys has the buoyancy of an anchor –
musically, he’s hit rock bottom. Fortunately, Noah is always changing up his
sound, so his next record is certain to be completely different (after all, it
can’t possibly be worse than this).
★☆☆☆☆
★☆☆☆☆
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