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So-Cal Kids Play Fancy-Familiar Debut

If we were geographically judgmental after listening to California-native Letting Up Despite Great Faults we might just believe cloudy days exist in LA.

So uncharacteristic is this Southern California group that their self-titled debut weeps balmy rather than blue skies. It’s not sad-bastard, but neither is it pop. There is a surging undercurrent warmth with Postal Service lulls like those felt in ‘Our Younger Noise’ and ‘So Fast: You’ masked brilliantly by enough lyrics to evade the otherwise obvious influence. ‘In Steps’ is as introspective as it is glittering thanks to Joy Division-like guitars and detached School of Seven Bells sounds. ‘Photograph Shakes’ takes pieces of each and successfully daisy chains them together for three minutes of disconnected electro-pop luster. “All of this and it still makes sense,” you ask? To pronounce the album as unfocused would be wrong notwithstanding its multitude of mentions. By keeping it sweet and charming, Letting Up avoids being derivative - even when it sure as hell looks like it’s headed that way.

But when it does find itself too close to cliff’s edge, you feel a little ripped off. Whether it’s the all-too-familiar Ben Gibbard chords of ‘Sun Drips’ or lack of emotional impact despite trying (see: all tracks), its hard to make out what is truly their own. Much like this album is short on offerings, (clocking in at just a hair over a half hour) it is a day late on finding the “self.” You’ll be hard pressed to find anything of the cognitive Me or I as if the band woke up from amnesia and learned how they should be perceived by musical memoirs from others. So congrats, Letting Up. You are successful in pulling the wool over our eyes, but it feels all too familiar for a first time around.

Sean Kendall