In the world of indie music, the pairing of James Mercer and Danger Mouse is a pretty huge one, even if it may seem somewhat strange on the surface. Mercer’s work with his band The Shins is likely one of the largest, if not the largest, contributing factors to this decades trend of bringing indie music to a wider audience. Meanwhile, Danger Mouse has not only been extremely busy, but with The Grey Album and his work as half of Gnarls Barkley, he has probably been behind some of the most “important” music in recent memory. This being the case, there was a pretty insane set of expectations surrounding the collaboration between the two musicians. But those who were paying careful attention probably shouldn’t have been too surprised that what they produced was a relatively understated, though mostly enjoyable, collection of songs.
It’s not an exaggeration to suggest that Broken Bells greatest attribute also probably marks their greatest defect, and that’s the bands ability to write consistently solid music. There are not a ton of peaks and valleys across their self-titled album, all the songs are pretty steadily good. While the plus-side of that equation is that there is not a single track that I would point to as being all that lackluster, there also aren’t any tracks that really strike the listener as standing out above the rest. The album instead really seems to exist as a cohesive whole, something that is increasingly rare in today’s music. Every single track seems to organically compliment the ones that come before and after it, and as a result the band seems content to thrill not in songs but in moments, in brief waves of inspiration amidst the overall sea of strong composition.
One of the ways in which the album occasionally distinguishes it’s stronger moments is through some inspired lyrics. There are moments where there’s a certain darkness creeping into Mercer’s lyrics despite his sweet falsetto delivery of them. On “The High Road” he sings; “a soldier is bailing out, he curled his lips on the barrel, and I don’t know if the dead can talk, to anyone.” It is precisely lyrics like this, along with the “guts on your blouse” that Mercer croons about on “Sailing to Nowhere,” that create some of the most striking imagery on the album. Mercer has always had the ability to make deceptively dark lyrical content sound conversely sweet, but Danger Mouse’s particularly moody production seems like it gives those moments of disturbing clarity a little extra bite.
While on the subject of Danger Mouse’s production, his work here is an interesting change of pace from some of his more hip hop and dance driven work of recent memory. There is a murkiness to this album that is subtly different from what most listeners have probably come to expect out of the artist, and he manages to pretty on the money for the most part. While there are moments where it seems like Danger Mouse aka Brian Burton is a bit out of his element (“Citizen” for example, where he sounds like he’s pandering to the Zero 7 crowd a bit too much), what I was most impressed with was how he largely seemed content to leave any personal flair behind and instead make music that was complimentary to Mercers voice and to the overall tone of the album. Burton’s only real moment to shine comes on the album’s closing track “The Mall & Misery,” where it’s his shift from graceful strings to spirited guitars that mark the best aspect of the track. The rest of the time it is about the cohesion between two different artists, who make it sound surprisingly free of any friction.
Despite the great amounts of professionalism on display across the LP, it seems to drag at times a bit more than it should. This could probably be attributed to the fact that while the album is a great example of a flawless exercise in musical craft, it’s also pretty devoid of the hooks and messy improvisation that had made the two artists previous respective efforts noteworthy. As such it occasionally creates the, probably unfair, impression that Burton and Mercer are just going through the motions, content to compliment each other, but never really step completely outside of their comfort zone to take any real musical risks. I suppose that gun to my head, if I absolutely had to make a decision, I would probably pick “The High Road,” “The Ghost Inside,” and “The Mall & Misery” as being a bit stronger than the rest, but it’s really only by a hair at most. On the whole, there are no tracks that really grab hold of the listener, demanding their attention.
This all being said, the album doesn’t have the same re-listen value that it probably should, considering how generally good it actually is, and make no mistake about it, the album is good. Yet, perhaps because of the undeniable talent involved and because of how tight the production is, it’s at least bit disappointing. Disappointing because despite how generally enjoyable the music may be, you can’t really ever shake the suspicion that two talented musicians like these who are operating at peak form should sound a little more exciting than this. For all of their charm, and Mercer and Burton both have an excess of that, there seems to be some small intangible element missing from this collaboration from making it truly great. It’s one of those rare occasions where “very good” seems like settling.
SCORE: 3.5 out of 5.0
