7.5
If
you aren't already a fan, drop that score a couple tenths; me myself I
was so looking forward to Any new Autre Ne Veut that the moment I heard
his Voice again I was signed on for the rest of the record. The higher
fidelity and slicker production on Anxiety actually do suit the
mainstream rnb tendencies which have always obviously underlay Arthur
Ashin's music, but they Also manage to turn one of his previous
strengths into a limitation: the unhinged, about-to-disintegrate song
structures, vocals so overwhelmed by emotion they verge on uncontrolled
shrieks, in the context of 'a proper debut into the mainstream/"big
leagues" of indie' limit conveyance of content. You can tell he's upset,
excited, feeling deeply (eg the old track 'emotional'), but not quite
Why or what About. Where previously even if the Implications of his
words weren't clear, at least the vocals Themselves were at the heart of
each song, on Anxiety the dense production overwhelms even verbal
intelligibility; this is a record about its Songs in the broadest sense,
rather than its lyrics.
This
divergence between aesthetic and content dogs the record; the songs all
Sound good, but only a select few are memorable out of context. It took
me til the last few tracks to reason it out, but suddenly I saw: there
are no Hooks in these songs. On his selftitled the most striking Thing
is the immediacy of the melodies, that nearly every track feels like an
old classic the first time you hear it, whereas here it feels as though
he became so concerned with making the songs Sound Perfect that he
forgot to Write them in the first place. It becomes an effort to get at
his precise Meanings, and often enough, if reached, they aren't
compelling enough to have warranted said effort. Where before it felt as
though he wrote the Hell out of Every song, straining for
alternate-reality chart-toppers at each at-bat, Anxiety feels a bit
loaded with filler, even at just ten tracks.
Don't
get me wrong, Play By Play is a fucking Monster of a song, but that's
just it: its soaring earworm of a hook makes it the exception that
proves the rule. In the harsh light of the blatant singles the 'album
cuts' seem wan and bloodless, interesting but not Instant Classics of
the sort he seemed to toss off before. The only other track that
approaches that immediate sing-to-oneselfability is, ironically, the
closer, World War. Midalbum blurs together a bit in the absence of
distinct hooks and melodies, with the notable exception of Gonna Die,
which captures quite well Another key component of his unique voice: the
ability to state selfevident, almost pedestrian philosophical or
personal notions (again, "I've got feelings in my heart/ that set me
apart") and somehow have them bear the full weight of their deepest
implications.
Anxiety
is Autre Ne Veut's 'difficult second album', without a doubt, with all
the songwriting trouble and artistic-directional confusion that term
implies, but that by no means makes it a failure. It brings to mind that
second Twin Shadow album that came out last year, which Also had a
perfectly reasonable aesthetic and was acceptable as 'this artist's new
record' but whose individual songs clearly were just not quite as
immediate and memorable as those on his debut. That said, a gifted
musician with a unique and valuable voice performing weak tracks is
Still a gifted musician, and this is indeed the second Autre Ne Veut
album.
