Artist: Local Natives
Release: Hummingbird (Album)
Release Date: Out Now
In 2010 Local Natives brought us the youthful, yet well crafted ‘Gorilla Manor.’ This album welcomed strong critical acclaim, but obvious inspiration from the likes of Fleet Foxes and The National stopped it from being brilliant; with the noticeable similarities retracting from their stylistic originality.
For their new album ‘Hummingbird,’ the band have recruited the services of The National’s Aaron Desner, the artist contributing with production, performance and song-writing. Local Natives haven’t quite shaken off the aforementioned comparisons, but have managed to produce a collection of songs that really shows how they’ve matured since their debut and that they’ve got a lot more in their locker than to simply feed off other bands’ sounds.
Since ‘Gorilla Manor,’ the band have split with their bassist Andy Hamm, and lead-singer Kelsey Ayer’s mother also passed away. The result of this strong sense of loss among the band has transpired into a far more soulful and evocative new album; the opening song ‘You & I’ setting this tone from the off, with Ayer’s sweet, radiant vocals softly complementing the harmonic guitar-play lining the track.
The slow guitar/drum build up to the verse of ‘Mt. Washington,’ structures a subtle, eerie tone, with Ayer adding suggestive vocals: “Digging like you can bury something that cannot die.” All of these ingredients make for one of the album’s best tracks.
One of the album’s more energetic numbers, ‘Breakers,’ displays drummer Matt Frazier’s impressive feel for adding to tracks with his stop-start, tempo-varying drumming style. This works well with Taylor Rice’s backing-vocals that sit subtly beneath Ayer’s apprehensive lyrics: “Breathing out, hoping to breathe in, I know nothing’s wrong but I’m not convinced.”
The album’s standout song, though, is ‘Colombia.’ Written about Ayer’s deceased mother, the emotive value of this song stands head and shoulders over that of the rest of the album, with the band finding the perfect balance of delicate piano fill alongside Ayer’s stirring, questioning vocals: “Am I loving enough?” Bellowed from the most poignant depths of Ayer’s inner-self, this succulent track is the closest the album comes to showing the world that Local Natives have that unique, genre-defining quality that they’ve never quite grasped.
Although ‘Hummingbird’ still possesses some quite recognisable similarities to a few certain bands – particularly the band with whom they toured not so long ago, Arcade Fire (more specifically their album Neon Bible) – this album really does offer a melodic, provocative listening experience that tugs on the heartstrings in many places whilst maintaining a thoroughly placid, touching sound.
7/10
Reviewer: Bart Williams
