It’s no simple task crafting fun tunes that also feel important. For every timeless Talking Heads’ “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” or They Might Be Giants’ “Ana Ng,” there are thousands of ditties that had us bobbing our heads the first month, then grimacing forever after.
In Case We Die, the 2005 breakout from Australian indie-pop crew Architecture in Helsinki, managed the rare feat, blithe numbers “It’s 5!,” “Tiny Paintings” and “Do the Whirlwind” in particular coupling instantaneous delight with long-term durability. Follow-up Places Like This supplies no such weight. From the first strains of opener “Red Turned White”—the sound of fireworks, a beat ripped from Def Leppard’s “Rock of Ages,” melodramatic vocals reminiscent of Electric Six—it’s clear that campy gimmickry has replaced eclectic ingenuity, to such an extent that it’s actually painful returning to several tracks a second time.
“Hold Music” finds the Architects atrociously nicking The B-52’s. “Debbie” comes off like a third-rate Rapture outtake. And even when the group finally strings together a couple of decent songs (“Lazy (Lazy)” and “Nothing’s Wrong”) near the end of the disc, it could be mistaken for a Modest Mouse cover act while doing so, hardly a reason to bother with Places Like This, now or later.
ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI
Places Like This
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