'In Ear Park' is the new Department of Eagles CD on new home 4AD and it's a well rounded collection of vaudeville style folksy pop tunes that occasionally remind me of a ghostly ballroom with a warm bubble in the corner where the band in flickering technicolour are plying their trade. It's a more meandering yet stylistically focussed effort than their debut. Main guy Daniel Rossen (apparently a member of the hugely popular Grizzly Bear) seems to have settled on a kind of melancholic folky Arcade Fire-esque template for their tunes rather than the scattershot schizoid madness of their debut (which was actually quite amazing) There's some queer old pop gems on here, sounding Mercury Rev-ish in their nostalgic quirkiness but the songs are a bit too new to me to stick in my head like they did when exposed to the slippery radio dial insanity of 'The Cold Nose' As far as the nostalgia thing goes, there's some hazy, lovelorn Kinks-ish tendrils to this out of step aural fog, something very homely & sepia tinged about the whole thing. I quite like it but i'm not sure if we should be friends just yet as it smells a bit like wood glue & old mints with fluff on. And has beige teeth. If you wanna take a chance on this band having not heard 'em before then you should also pick up the debut on Melodic here as it's on an insanely cheap deal at the moment (old label no doubt having overpressed the fucker thinking they were gonna be bigmassivehuge) Possibly will appeal to fans of Beirut & TV on the Radio's more sentimental moments. I dunno. Make up yr own mind I've got stacks to do & i'm rambling.....
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What their label says...
‘In Ear Park’ is a colourful and expansive album featuring an intimate
and personal collection of songs. Much of the material that singer,
guitarist and songwriter Daniel Rossen (also of Grizzly Bear fame)
brought to ‘In Ear Park’ draws on memories from his childhood,
especially those relating to his father, who passed away in 2007 and to
whom the album is dedicated (the title track is a nickname for a park
in Los Angeles that the two used to visit). Many of Fred Nicolaus’
contributions relate to similar themes of nostalgia and mortality,
giving the album at times an elegiac feel. ‘In Ear Park’ is full of joyful moments, lush production and concise songwriting.
“A mercurial new talent has just landed” – The Times.
