Bishop Allen & The Broken String - Bishop Allen

Bishop Allen & the Broken String

Bishop Allen & the Broken String
Dead Oceans Records.

SCQ Rating: 70%

Upon this record’s internet debut last summer, Bishop Allen enjoyed two week’s worth of hype before fading rather quickly into indie-blog obscurity. During that time, I failed to follow what songs were hot or what personalities the band consisted of, but playing catch-up here in 2008, I can attest to Bishop Allen & the Broken String’s instant gratification and long-term indifference. Yeah, I'm completely indifferent about the band, but why do I keep playing their songs? Someone should look into this...

Opening with ‘The Monitor’, a well-honed exercise in tense verse and cathartic chorus, The Broken String kicks off like the next best guilty pleasure for indie kids everywhere. Where the first pop arrangement subsides, ‘Rain’ jumps in, punchier than its predecessor and undeniable in its commercial-ready, upbeat appeal. The acoustic-plucked opening of ‘Click, Click, Click, Click’ states “I ducked out of the rain / into Maria’s wedding day”; an excellent segue from the previous track’s central theme into a song from the standpoint of a failed suitor watching an ex get married. The passenger perspective continues in ‘The Chinatown Bus’, which attempts to ride out the culture shock inherent to traveling foreign lands, and closes in ‘Flight 180’s melodrama; a track that melodically bookends what the record’s first song implied.

I end that unusually descriptive paragraph there because within those five songs I’ve illustrated a decent EP, one that, with ‘Corazon’ tossed in for good measure, Bishop Allen could’ve released and likely ridden a longer wave of blogger hype. The material mentioned is pop in such unadulterated terms that one could muster all the depth from it they’d prefer; these songs, despite their rather faceless template and take on individual style, are thoroughly enjoyable for both casual listeners and curious audiophiles.

Beyond that, Bishop Allen & the Broken String encompasses a band testing the far reaches of musical styles in search of a sound they can call home, and results in such failed experiments as ‘Middle Management’, a rock song too boring to earn its genre, and ‘Butterfly Nets’; a stalemate that lives up to its twee title. The Broken String’s second half is full of these uncertain trials, and although they subdue most of the first half’s thunder, Bishop Allen prove that they can carry a good hook from inception to execution.