Fans of the Los Angeles indie band Radar Brother will find their eighth studio album (correspondingly entitled Eight) to have a fuller and more diverse sound than previous albums, while yet retaining the simple and sentimental folk overtones that gained them their early critical accolades. Achieving a quiet confidence with their voices and stirring up reposeful, downtempo atmospheres, they take us on a journey through the passive passions and simple ponderings of their melodious minds.
A dash of the epic is present in the opening “If We Were Banished,” which lifts you off your feet and carries you into the sky to submerge you in the dreamy crush of its heavy guitars, while simultaneously soothing you with the husky tenderness of circumambient vocals. “Reflections” goes for a faster, bass-driven rock groove that’s set against a unison of woeful voices and the subdued scorch of a fiery guitar. More lugubrious guitars underscore the uncomplicated, home-sweet sentiments of “Couch” while funkier ones cry out to the spiritual folk of “Angler’s Life.” Meanwhile, sentimental melodies, fragile vocals, resurgent percussion and passionately crescendoing refrains are all present in “Change of College Law,” “Disappearer,” and “Ebony Bow.”
Experimental territory is crossed on “House of Mirrors,” with its high-out pads, bewitching vocals, and hypnotic grooves, as well as in “Bottle Song,” which steps at glacial pace through dark piano, tribal percussion and a chilled soulful chorus. “Time Rolling By” takes a traditional route of steady anthem-rock, and “Horse Down” closes us off with a sweet and melancholic, folksy tune supplemented by spacey synths and catchy melodic hooks. Overall there’s a lingering feel of solidarity to these sounds—a sense of musicians brought together by the hopeful visions and their faith in the strength of their sound. It makes for a solid and enjoyable work of indie rock from these Merge Records veterans.
