John Congleton has delivered a masterpiece. Congleton, who has made a name for himself as the front man for the now defunct Paper Chase and as an engineer and producer, has had a pretty phenomenal past few years. I actually became familiar with him due to his production of the last St. Vincent LP (actually pretty much her whole catalog), and he has lent his engineering, session work and production to some of my favorite albums of the past few year, such as the aforementioned record as well as Chelsea Wolfe's Abyss, and my favorite album of 2014, Swan's To Be Kind, though his credits include hundreds of records.
With such an impressive but diverse resume, and my unfamiliarity with the Paper Chase, I had no idea what this album was going to sound like, but I knew it was going to sound fantastic. His production is always extremely well recorded, and this record is no exception. This kind of sounds like a distorted and warped version of synth pop, but through an extremely dark lens. These songs are super catchy and are inherently poppy in sound, but the throbbing synths, pounding drums and demented vocal performances give it a unique flavor. If you can imagine Fred Thomas singing about mortality, serial killers and the meaning of life through a compression filter, with Icky Blossoms as a backing band, all dropped in a cavern of reverb and weird soundscapes, you have his aesthetic. It's interesting to see this influences bleed into the albums he's worked on, and vice versa, because I definitely get traces of St. Vincent, Swans and Xiu Xiu on this album. Explosions in the Sky and Kirk Franklin's influences might be a little more difficult to pinpoint.
As previously stated, the lyrics on this album take some dark turns. Congleton really excels at the thing Kevin Barnes and of Montreal do where they put super depressing lyrics and dark subjects over super bouncy, sugary and upbeat music (I hear a little bit of them on 'The White Powerless'), though some sour piano chords and some synth work hint at something a little sinister. From the title(-ish) track 'Until it Goes', I hear a story of a killer or killers, who are now contemplating suicide after authorities find their murder house, along with their grizzly trophies, or at least that's how I'm interpreting it (did I mention I just binge watched all of Hannibal over the past month?). However, unless you listen to the lyrics, it's a indie rock tune with a catchy melody and some fuzzed out but bright synths and bells. I just love tracks that can mask their disturbing nature by offsetting it with an upbeat tune. He also has some great lines on this album. "If you want to see a dead body, take off your clothes", from the first track 'Animal Rites' just had such a bitter and haunting quality to it, and most of the music cuts out when he says it the first time, so it just sits their with you while you ponder its meanings.
This record is great, and I'm looking forward to what he does next, or what albums he'll be producing or engineering in the future. I see his name in the credits of Swans' upcoming album, The Glowing Man, which I was already excited for, so this record just amped me up even more. If you've listened any of the albums he's worked on and dug them, I suggest you look into this (A list of his credits can be found here: http://www.allmusic.com/artist/john-congleton-mn0000215209/credits ). A fantastic album.
Out of a total of five stars, I give this:
Check back in soon for my Last Shadow Puppets review. Many other reviews coming soon.
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