This past week has been a roller coaster of emotion, folks. Not because of the many-sided agitation that engulfed campus last week, nor because of the profound reflection and social dialogue that followed. No, indeed, I was far too frazzled by "Bankrupt!", the new album from French synth-pop sensations Phoenix, to notice any of that. Over the course of our week together I experienced blinding hate, overwhelming love, crippling ambivalence and four of the five stages of grief, and now I'm here, ready to tell you: this is a pretty solid album. You should check it out.
If that sounds like a pretty unbelievable level of emotional response to a pop album, that's because it is. It's called hyperbole, people. But I'm not exaggerating when I say that the first time I listened to "Bankrupt!" I was entirely put off. I went in expecting ten versions of "1901" and "Lisztomania" the uber-catchy 2009 anthems whose undeniable hooks propelled Phoenix from indie respect to festival main stages and car commercials. And when I found, on that first listen, that lead single "Entertainment" didn't live up to that benchmark, it put me in a bad place for the rest of the album.
But with each subsequent listen, "Bankrupt!" has grown on me a bit more. As musicians, Phoenix are tight as ever. They do 1983-via-2013 synth pop as well as anyone in the business, keeping things interesting with entrancing keyboard melodies and deft rhythmic changes. Thomas Mars' voice is essential to the band's charm, tinged with just the right amount of French enigma.
Exploring "Bankrupt!" alongside Phoenix's earlier work, I realized that this is a band I enjoy more for their individual songs than their albums. In a concentrated 10-song block, the things that I dislike about the album (and about Phoenix) can be hard to ignore.
For starters, frontman Mars really seems to be talking a lot without having too much to say. In the tradition of singers like R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe, Mars' lyrics are mostly obscure and hard to interpret, a trend that has grown more prominent with each passing album. More than half of the songs here lament the trials of fame and the vapid culture of Los Angeles, a theme that seems old by the time the last notes of "S.O.S. in Bel Air" fade out.
I also can't shake the feeling that, for all the band's musical talent, these ten songs sound almost exactly the same. Opening synth flourish, simple verse, drawn-out buildup, beat drop, chorus, keyboard motif, rinse, repeat. And of course that's not true. One trick that has really helped me warm up to "Bankrupt!" has been to consider the album on a song-by-song basis, rather than as a cohesive artistic statement.
Each progressive listen has brought more detail out of the fog for me, exposing interesting variations in texture and rhythm and revealing some deceptively catchy songs.
"Entertainment" may not be immediately catchy in the vein of "1901," but it grows on you steadily, so that by the fourth or fifth listen, it's hard not to nod along to the sustained drumroll of the buildup or the buoyant synth line of the chorus.
The shifting, slinky beats of "S.O.S. in Bel Air" and "Trying to Be Cool" prove that drummer Thomas Hedlund is the backbone of the band. "Chloroform" is all slow-motion shuffle, cascading synths and drums building off of each other as Mars croons, "My love, my love, my love, my love is...cruel." "Don't" ramps up the tempo, trading off between jumpy New Wave verses and big beat choruses evocative of Robyn. "Oblique City" is one of the album's catchiest tracks, built on a hummable melody and featuring cheery falsetto vocals. The synth textures on "Bankrupt" unfold slowly over five wordless minutes, shifting from bucolic woodwinds to squelching bass to musicbox fractals.
As my extremely conflicted review has shown so far, I'm still not sure how I feel about "Bankrupt!" With each listen I like it more and more, but I've yet to find the rapturous appreciation that cements an album in my rotation. More likely than not, a few of its songs will worm their way, but the rest will fade into the background.
