(Brute/Beaute)
Perhaps no other CD released so far this year accomplishes as much as More Adventurous, the new collection by Rilo Kiley and the band's first for its own label.
Two previous, acclaimed indie releases found the band members traveling from L.A., where the band was started by a couple of disgruntled former actors, to Seattle, where singer Jenny Lewis performed with the Postal Service, and finally to Omaha, Neb., where they were adopted by Bright Eyes and friends.
Their experiences have obviously paid off. The record skips around stylistically from campfire sing-alongs to big rock riffs to Broadway, to lo-fi indie, traditional country and brassy '60s pop — sometimes within the same song — and it all makes sense.
Lewis' vocals continue to impress. She can belt out a heartbreaker like Patsy Cline or Tarnation's Paula Frazier, or she can sound vulnerable and open like Carly Simon or Deborah Harry. (Her status as an icon to gay men is likely only minutes away.) Her short story-style lyrics continue to stand out as well, suggesting what Angela from My So-Called Life would be doing today if her parents had been Simon and Elvis Costello.
The complaints are small: The first song, "It's a Hit," begins with a verse comparing President Bush to a feces-throwing ape, which will atypically always taint it as a 2004 song, rather than what could have been something timeless. Also, Lewis' partner, Blake Sennett, though a talented guitarist, has never contributed more than filler when it comes to his own songs. His recent side project, The Elected, apparently wasn't enough to keep him away from the pen and the mic. Here he's held to only one song, a typically sub-Elliott Smith ditty ("Ripchord"), which only serves to make Lewis seem more accomplished.
As the disc unfolds, Rilo Kiley is at times revealed to be most similar to the Flaming Lips. Both combine sunny melodies with lyrics about death and struggle, and both continue to try to find new, more adventurous ways to expand the vocabulary of pop music.
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