Field Music : Plumb

<img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/fieldmusicplumb.jpg" alt="Field Music : Plumb" /><br /> After over-psych, now Field Music are ‘psych without the psych.’ ...
Field Music : Plumb
4.3 Memphis
2012 

Field Music : Plumb After some nice, if hardly overwhelming, ditties on Field Music and Tones of Town (QRO review), the brothers Brewis took time off for side-projects, but when they returned to Field Music in 2010 with (Measure) (QRO review), they abandoned simplicity for all the bells & whistles of unnecessary psych-rock, plus an all-over-the-place rhythm (or rather, lack thereof).  On Plumb, Field Music have retreated at least from those depths, but instead their attempt at a new version of symphonic Beatles just feels like ‘psych without the psych.’

Like on (Measure), Plumb lacks any sort of consistent rhythm, instead meandering and even running all over the place without purpose other than self-indulgence.  But Plumb takes out many of the over-psych guitar elements of (Measure), replacing them with stabs at the kind of pop symphonies that The Beatles could do – but hardly anyone else could.  The latter is just an at-best-middling attempt, while the former is downright annoying – and the two don’t complement each other.

Plumb at least relatively cuts down its number of tracks, from (Measure)‘s twenty to ‘only’ fifteen, and some of the pieces on Plumb are short instrumentals.  If (Measure) felt too long by half, then Plumb is just too long by quarter.  However, all the rhythm changes and seemingly random adding and subtracting of piano, strings, vocals, and more make it hard to tell when one song ends and another one begins.  The grandeur is likewise random, and comes off feeling unearned.

There are some better moments on Plumb (in relative terms), like the build to Beatles-big on back-to-back "A Prelude to Pilgrim Street" and "Guillotine", but even the best put together piece, the following "Who’ll Pay the Bill?", is just a ramshackle pop contrivance.  And while the funk behind "A New Town" at least provides some consistency to the rhythm, one isn’t looking for funk from the Sunderland brothers – and it ends with the sound of a bong hit?

The lightweight nature of Tones of Town was at least answered by the over-psych & spastic rhythms of (Measure), even if it was a poor, poor answer – and the over-psych of (Measure) (though not the still-spastic rhythms) have at least been answered by somewhat shifting towards orchestral on Plumb.  It is a relative improvement from those lows, but without the over-psych it just feels like ‘psych without the psych.’

MP3 Stream: "A Prelude To Pilgrim Street"

{audio}/mp3/files/Field Music – A Prelude To Pilgrim Street.mp3{/audio}

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