The Big Sleep: Nature Experiments

Rating: 3.5/5  

The Big Sleep is from Brooklyn. Of course they are. New album Nature Experiments, their third full-length release, is infused with all the indie cool that’s currently associated, in a fairly kneejerk fashion, with New York City’s borough of indie entitlement. The entire release emanates blasé self-assurance, a seeming certainty that the band can play with various styles, shift tempos, hum out their lyrics with an almost distracted air. Everything will work out, even if the vocals are distorted, the electronics embellishments bleep like randomly flickering stars, the guitars roar with the fire of ironic rock gods. This is what happens when bands grow up being told they can do anything they want. Of course, sometimes that promise is true.

If Nature Experiments sometimes comes across as more derivative than adventurous, it’s also consistently fun, sprightly and even unpredictable. It manages that neat trick – more and more elusive as albums give way to playlists – of assembling a batch of songs that sound distinct from one another while still clearly emanating from the same artist. The fluttering riff that opens “Ghosts in Bodies,” for example, doesn’t sound quite like anything else on the record, but I can imagine it being discovered through much the same songwriting methodology that led to the agitated XTC-style pulses of “Ladders” or the intense guitar tones of “#1.” Guitarist Danny Barria, bassist Sonya Balchandani and drummer Gabe Rhodes create a group of songs that hold cohesively together while still managing to be sonically diverse and interesting.

“Four Wishes” is a track that slyly goes all over the place in three-and-a-half minutes, like a Sleigh Bells song that wants to sneak up on the listener instead of grab them by the collar and drag them around. It starts with one of those strident death disco guitar grooves before caving in to heavy metal thunder rush from which Balchandani’s distorted vocals emerge, cooing, “I made four wishes/ For what I want my life to be” like a Siouxsie Sioux fembot with a busted voicebox. That about covers the first 30 seconds. From there, the song tips and reels and generally flows in any direction it damn well pleases. At one point around the bridge, I thought a goth hula seduction might break out.

That brand of abandon can sometimes unsettle the album a little too much, calling the sincerity of some interludes into question. It can be a fine line between a steady, dance-inflected march and dull plod, and a couple songs don’t walk that line especially well (the arid grind of “Red Carpet” comes to mind). The majority of the album resides in that sweet spot where the charge of the band overtakes any reservations, and even the bits that are recycled start to sound great. “Ace” percolates with a mix of buzzy guitars, popping electro tones and sexily disinterested vocals that make it sound like Garbage shaking off their overly lacquered ‘90s affectations and crafting a more modern version of their signature sound. It might not kick off the party, but it would sound amazing played at top volume as the last song before everyone wandered away to let the sweat start to dry. It still doesn’t prove that the Big Sleep can actually achieve anything they want. But let’s not tell them that just yet. For right now, the belief otherwise is still paying off.