Autopilot is for Lovers – To the Wolves
This album really is strange. Largely, it’s a gorgeously spooky indie folk album with plenty of snarl and threat to it, and then occasionally it disappears off into pretty much garage rock territory, cutting up rough with the guitars. Lead vocalist Adrienne Hatkin has a quavering, ragged edge to her voice which can go from lovely Michelle Shocked cooing tones to angry, lupine howls at the drop of a hat, adding to the surprise when they do change gears.
Shadow, for example, is an angry, punky song full of growling blues. One song later, Biology is a fragile piano lament more akin to a disturbed take on the likes of Cocorosie or even Beth Orton. Next up is a borderline-apocalyptic accordion line with a thudding percussion undercurrent, which slowly morphs into something more comforting when the brass makes an appearance. In other words, this album is weird, wonderful and all over the place.
That’s a large part of what makes it so good, of course. I will confess that there are times when the shifting about causes me to lose my grip on it a little, however, and there are one or two moments where I find her voice a little too much. This tend to be largely on the more rollicking garage rocky songs, but then there are plenty of times when I think it’s bloody gorgeous, so maybe it’s more to do with the style of the music at those moments rather than the actual vocal. In fact, the garage rock elements of this are definitely my least favourite aspect of the album, but they do play a crucial role in offsetting everything else, so it would be foolish to wish them away.
Adrienne herself was apparently involved in an embryonic incarnation of Portland’s band of mental geniuses The Builders & the Butchers, and you can hear plenty of their hellfire and brimstone attitude to folk music stalking this album. Autopilot do seem to have more of a tendency to slow things down to a simmer though, but when they do so there’s always the threat of it all kicking off once more, and that underlying promise is one of the best things about this record.
Autopilot is for Lovers – Whale Belly
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Autopilot is for Lovers – Come Now
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