#103: la la larks - Culture Vulture

[Zeus 7997]

 

 

Tracklist:

1. Massive Passive

2. 色彩 (Album Ver.)

3. ハレルヤ

4. End of Refrain

5. Loop

6.たりない

7. さよならワルツ

8. Q and A (Album Ver.)

9. 失う

10. Ego-izm

11. Reset

12. Self

 

| Ambivalence in its purest form

 

siraph may have the soul, but la la larks has the voice, and as long as Yumi Uchimura can sing I feel obligated to sample whatever project she is in. Culture Vulture is the debut album half a decade in the making - la la larks emerged from the ashes of school food punishment in 2012 - and this is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, I've matured enough to appreciate la la larks for what it is instead of what it is not. On the other hand, if an album takes five years to make, I expect a damn good album. la la larks isn't the only band on the block anymore, and competition breeds incentive, so the only expectation I had was that they would give it their all.

 

Listening to Culture Vulture is ambivalence in its purest form. I want to rip la la larks for releasing such little music for the last five years, but I also want to dig into them for having released half of Culture Vulture already. It's two shakes away from falling into the Chinese Democracy category, lacking the feeling of having been toyed with for too long, but already I feel like I've heard this years ago. It is a great album, engineered to perfection, and the experience only intensifies with great audio equipment, but the recipe may as well be printed on the back. I raved about "ego-izm" when it was released as a single, but every other track in that vein feels like an alternate, less effective take. Things get good when la la larks unshackle themselves from their oppressive, self-imposed pop constraints for the tracks such as "loop" or the jazzy ballad "たりない", which have grown to be two of my favorites. It's the biggest indication that there's more to this band than pop songs that would double as juicy anime cash-ins, but they hardly ever show it.

 

Perhaps I haven't changed after all and just want Yumi to throw me a bone. Her voice over dissonant noise and reverb is addictive, and we get close with the deceptive opening of the last track "Self", but close is not enough. Culture Vulture could have taken more risks and been more unpredictable. I'm looking for a figurative wink and nod towards the darker, more contemplative moments similar to sfp's "loop, share", "deviswitch", or even la la larks' "earworm"! It would have done wonders to invigorate my interest.

 

I like it, but I wonder how much of that was engineered and how much of it is my honest opinion. In chasing the goal of creating their perfect pop album, la la larks gives us no indication of how close they are to the apex of their sound. I can clearly hear the talent in every member, but no one does anything that wows me musically. The album never reaches critical mass or picks up a pace faster than a jog, and that turns the tail end of this journey into a slog. When their direct competition made it a point to make a statement with their first release, I'm left disappointed that it took so long to create an album that left such an underwhelming impact.

But what did you really expect when you crystallize school food punishment's two eras into two bands and pit them against each other?

 

 

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[Ito 2438]

Man, I am just happy that they are actually putting out an actual album. I have yet to listen to it, but here to hoping this is the first step in them actually being a most consistent group.