Los Angeles isn’t exactly known as a breeding ground for great rock bands. Maybe the weather’s just too nice for people to get all mopey and brooding (always key ingredients for quality rock). Given that fact, the strong debut of L.A. based Rilo Kiley is even more laudable. The recently released Take Offs and Landings (Barsuk) finds the indie-pop quartet clicking on all cylinders, producing a buoyant blend of chiming guitars and cooing vocals. The band-vocalist/keyboardist Jenny Lewis, guitarist/vocalist Blake Sennet, bassist/guitarist Pierre de Reeder and drummer Dave Rock-are alarmingly consistent for being so early into their careers.
The album starts off with the low-key acoustic “Go Ahead,” one of many embittered lyrical numbers that finds Lewis in a confrontational stance. Lews delivers lines like, “If you want to hold your own hand going up that cliff/Or if you want to just hold back because you ain’t up to it/Go ahead be my guest/Go Ahead” in a striking alto with a dash of country twang to it. Other sparse folk numbers pop up sporadically and are always serviceable at worst, but Rilo Kiley truly shines when it shifts into more rocking terrain such as “Science vs. Romance.”
“Science vs. Romance” is the kind of indie-pop song that sounds like everyone could write it (‘Hey, let’s throw in a nice angular guitar part and repeat it a lot!’) but still ends up being instantly memorable. The song stretches out to near the six-minute mark but doesn’t overstay its welcome thanks to some stellar guitar breaks from Sennet and Lewis’ consistently evocative wordplay. Few tunes have more memorable opening lines then, “I used to think if I could realize I’d die then I would be a lot nicer.”
Rilo Kiley does occasionally divert from the straight-up rock format on Take Offs and Landings. The introspective “Don’t Deconstruct” rides a gentle electric keyboard riff supported only by scant brass and violin accompaniment, and stands as one of the highlights of the album. The slower numbers on Take Offs and Landings could almost qualify as quasi-country if they didn’t feature the frenetic guitar of Sennet whose lead work clearly owes more to Television than Hank Williams. One could easily imagine the band garnering accolades from alt. country fans if they threw in a stray banjo or pedal steel to the mix.
The secret ingredient that truly diversifies Take Offs and Landings, however, is Sennet’s voice. The few tracks on which he sings lead vocals (“August,” “Small Figures in a Vast Expanse”) prove that Rilo Kiley is a band with more than one capable singer in the bunch. Sennet’s voice strongly recalls Elliot Smith in its plaintive melancholy quality and proves equally touching.
A lot of bands need a few releases under the belt before they release something as strong as Take Offs and Landings, and Rilo Kiley deserves serious props for getting nearly everything right the first time out of the gate.
