AN ORCHESTRATED RISE TO FALL

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The only other album of Jimmy LaValle’s that I’ve heard is the 2006 Album Leaf release ‘Into the Blue Again’ and surprisingly even though that one has several guest musicians and this one is a completely solo effort the 2006 release sounds an awful lot more one-dimensional to me than this debut.

Part of the reason may just be that some people tend to enjoy the thrill of listening to a new artist for the first time, and once that initial sense of discovery is over whatever follows becomes something of a letdown. I’m probably one of those people. But it may be a bit more than that too: this album has a lot more interesting percussion than the latter record, and the acoustic guitar work is more pronounced when LaValle gets around to playing it (which is more often than in his later work). Also I’m a sucker for strings, and the ones on tracks like “Airplane” and “A Short Story” make this a better album than it would be otherwise.

And speaking of “A Short Story”, this lengthy track is really the only one on the record that really strikes me as a true post-rock composition. The rest are good, but tend closer to ambient music than true complex post-rock. In that respect the later Album Leaf record (granted, the only other one I’ve heard) is more complex and varied, but it doesn’t have as much inherent energy and emotion in it.

This is a style of music that eschews building crescendos and power for mood and understated sentiments, so if you’re one of those people who likes your experimental music to overwhelm you with emotion you may find yourself disappointed with this disk.

I’m going to rate it as pretty good, not great, but for fans of the Album Leaf this is probably a record you’re going to want to pick up just to see the progression of the artist if for no other reason. Me, I’ll wait for the next release and see what he’s managed to evolve into before deciding whether I’m getting hooked or not.

peace