Phoenix: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

If there's a lyric sheet enclosed with my copy of this CD, I don't wanna look at it. Vocalist Thomas (no relation to Bruno) Mars, wails squeaky, tense, yet curiously laid back vocals obscured by the hammering backbeat and buzzing overtones and jangling guitars. Every so often I hear a stray lyric or a clearly audible refrain, but for the most part it's just there as a sonic ingredient. Maybe it's bloody great poetry, or maybe it's just stupid filler words that sound pretty when strung together. I wouldn't know and I don't think it's important.

Because if they're going to invoke Wolfgang Amadeus, I'm going to hold them to it. And since I wouldn't know the meaning of the words to the Magic Flute's Queen of the Night area if they were written out for me, I'm choosing willful ignorance here too. Like an opera or some such, I'm thinking more about the way the vocals sound set against the landscape of the instrument, as well as the way the songs fit together (well, I always think bout that) rather than what they're probably about.

This all occurred to me when I noticed the backing synth beginning to soar when Mars sings "Fallin', fallin', fallin'" on "1901," rather than following him down. "Falling," I proclaimed on Twitter, is the easiest word to hook a song around. It can be a joyful or mournful exclamation, and you can emulate the feeling with your voice. You can drag it out (as Steven Page did on "Over Joy" the song I was actually listening to at the time) or you can chant it breathlessly as Mars does here to make it urgent. Thinking less about the lyrics also allows me to forgive the Barry Gibb tone he cops on the third track, "Fences."

It's when the vocals drop away that you start to sense how little they truly matter. Few (non-Electronica) artists are doing instrumentals these days, so when something like "Love Like a Sunset" (part 1 unvocalized, and part 2 the conclusion) happens, you pay attention. I thought it was boring until I realized it was kinda beautiful. It's hard to sound grandiose without pushing yourself into overt pretension -- well, any moreso than name-checking Mozart and Liszt was going to anyway. Those tracks work because they're clean and focused. And really, no matter how much the album buzzes and hums and spirals, it never really loses control.

Which might actually be kind of a shame. The album's thrilling at times, but a moderated form of excitement, perhaps due to those layers upon layers of sounds weighing each track down. Aside from the crescendo of "Sunset," this is an album without much highs and lows, just frantic searching around the middle tones, whether with the tumbling drums of "Lasso" or the shimmering melancholy of "Rome." Every so often on the album you get a small moment that really hits you, but it moves on. Were it not for its preference to let the soundscape overwhelm, as opposed to reaching for pop simplicity, I'd be tempted to put it in the same class as Coldplay. But it's far from that.

Like a symphony, it feels distant and difficult to perceive for its individual parts. At least to me, it's obscure in meaning and open to interpretation in tone. But that doesn't stop it from being an interesting, mostly enjoyable construct of music. A lot of the time, it lets you crawl inside and feel it surround you and make whatever you like of it. Sometimes, like the charging "Lisztomania," it sounds like pop, but a lot of the time it doesn't. Sometimes the ambition pays off, sometimes it's just distracting.

I could've done with more "Love Like a Sunset" moments, however, and less of the disco rehab of "Fences" or the harpsichord on "Armistice," which ends the album just a tad abruptly. But that's on me. If they could've crafted something that sounded like "Sunset" along the same structural lines as "Lisztomania" or "1901," they really would've gotten me. All in all, it's good music to drift off to in any case.

ADDENDUM: Let it never be said I don't get around to doing my research eventually. Apparently the hook to "1901" goes "Folded, folded, folded," rather than "Falling." Which is a shame; I liked my version better, and it proves my point about the lyrics not being particularly important.

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