Hugh Delaney| Staff Writer
Alt J’s much anticipated sophomore release ‘This Is All Yours” hit the shelves last month, following on from their 2012 Mercury Award-winning debut “An Awesome Wave”. The band’s unique brand of electronic pop has garnered them a large worldwide following, their rapid ascent a feat rarely paralleled within the genre given the modest size of their catalogue. Their signature mishmash of multiple genres as seen in “An Awesome Wave” seems to be the key to their success, yielding a rich soundscape of contrasting textures and instrumentation.
Although retaining the dynamism of its predecessor, “This Is All Yours” is ultimately a much more subdued and muted affair than their previous work. The album begins with Intro, a meandering progression of looping layered vocals that builds into an expectedly idiosyncratic climax full of distorted drums and oriental strings. Somewhat reminiscent of their previous album’s Taro, it manages to whet our appetite for what is to come. However the next few tracks manage to smother this anticipation. The subsequent Arrival in Nara and Nara are two relatively tranquil, airy tracks, with abounding ooooohs and aaaaaahs and trusty loud-soft soft-loud dynamics.
A rather slow start to the album leads into Every Other Freckle, an inexplicably lyric-ed (see for yourself) tune which manages to pick up the slack for the preceding two, allowing us to finally get into the meat of the album. Despite the cringe-worthy lyrics the song is highly listenable, with the glitchy guitar-y synth-y solo a definite focal point. The record then finds itself at a marked sore thumb Left Hand Free, an uncannily Black Keys-esque ditty purportedly written for the label to promote to an American market. Between this and the following Garden of England – a frankly ridiculous baroque sounding recorder track – we might feel somewhat cheated by the boys, but alas, onwards.
The leading single of the album: Hunger of the Pine then appears, a track that has divided fans by its sample of Miley’s “4X4”. Whether or not the sample works is of course in the eye of the beholder (ear of the listener??) but the French chanting of an Alfred de Musset quote seems somewhat excessive. The album then trundles along to its end, on the way The Gospel Of John Hurt is a high – an expansive song centred around a building, rolling refrain – against a backdrop of fairly unstimulating and dull songs. Even the reprise of An Awesome Wave’s Bloodflood; Bloodflood Pt. II seems ironically, bloodless.
Over the course of the album Alt-J manage to borrow lyrics and ideas from multiple tracks of their previous album, Miley Cyrus, Bill Withers (bonus track), The Black Keys (sorta) and De Musset as mentioned. In between this they’re drawing influence from plainchant, baroque music, electronica, folk, pop-rock and more; an ambitious if perhaps foolhardy undertaking. Unfortunately this hasn’t resulted in a cohesive or indeed, very good album. The assortment of these varied styles that worked well in “An Awesome Wave” just doesn’t seem to mesh to the same extent here. The band drawing on so many influences and references ultimately seem to have their feet in too many proverbial camps, resulting in a palpable lack of direction and more importantly: conviction. The whole rather dreary affair feels lifeless and washed out despite its ups and downs; a disappointing album when compared with their début.
