When you're from San Diego you're surrounded by beautiful views all the time (and I guess views of air craft carriers as well); it's a gorgeous city that could very well be the prettiest in all of California. It's really no surprise then that The Beautiful View is named after what surrounds them everywhere they look. Anyway, musically, this band specialize in jerky, angular, New Yorkish sounding indie that comes off like a west coast version of say someone like Interpol crossed with Foo Fighters. Their album, Life Is Beautiful, is a dramatic, powerful and shifty affair that takes some of the California sunshine and darkens it a bit.
Life Is Beautiful is noisy, brash, and obtuse recording that still manages to hang on to a sense of melody. The melodies on this record have to fight to be heard over the constant din and the sheer amount of music played but they eventually do win out and a song like, "Bells," is born. Complete with chunky riffs and a soaring chorus that's seemingly phase shifted at times, "Bells," sounds like the best thing Dave Grohl never wrote. Life Is Beautiful isn't immediately catchy, it's odd time signatures, jumpiness, and moodiness take away from it's being easy to latch on to, but if you sit with the album for a listen or two you'll start to discover it's subtle harmonies and grooves.
The Beautiful View are art-rockers that have crammed so much sound into Life Is Beautiful it's almost impossible to hear it all. They're very good musicians and whether it's angular post punk influences or stadium soaring power pop the Beautiful View seem to have it covered and almost have it too covered. Life Is Beautiful is a good record that takes some investment from the listener to enjoy but once that investment is made, the record will continually make an impact as a well played artful work packed to gills with musicality.
No comments:
Post a Comment