Lali Puna have always come across to me as more of a “concept” act than anything else. After hearing the rabid, foaming fanyboyish praise that got heaped on Scary World Theory, I was completely dumbfounded. The whole thing came off as a premeditated Stereolab-meets-Notwist experiment, with little of the latter’s subtle power and far too much of the former’s fey smugness. I wrote it off as by-the-numbers Post-Rock and forgot about them.
Needless to say, I had no expectations for this record, but on impulse, I decided to check it out. Glad I did. Faking the Books drops the coyness and Tinkertoy aesthetics in favor of something more straightforward and much more successful.
The opening track could have been lifted straight out of the Notwist catalog, even though it’s got a character all its own. Valerie Trebeljahr has a pensive, almost exhausted-sounding voice, and when she sings, “everybody knows/this ain’t heaven,” she evokes the type of elegaic feel that fills Notwist’s best work.
There’s a hint of electric guitar at the end of the track which comes into full bloom on “Call 1-800-FEAR.” It’s a fast-paced track with overdriven bass and an aggressive backbeat, and Trebeljahr’s lyrics about paranoia and uncertainty bubble over the innocuous verses before soaring when the guitars kick in.
“Micronomic” continues in this vein, though the drums are a bit more erratic. The nice thing is that this is an actual song rather than some art-school excercise with lyrics. There’s a great sense of dynamics and flow at work, with just the slightest hint of Markus Archer’s knob-twiddling adorning the corners.
In fact, Archer contributes a very light touch to the record. He seems to have found a balance in using engineering tricks to embellish rather than overwhelm, much like last year’s excellent Neon Golden. Even on the sparser tracks like “The Small Things” and “Geography 5,” he lets Trebeljahr’s vocals keep the focus. There are brief detours into Krautrock (“Grin and Bear”), but even these are grounded in instrumentation that sounds somewhat conventional, and the emphasis is on emotional effect rather than style.
The record’s a bit front-loaded, and it runs a bit long toward the end, but even the last three tracks have their merits, even if they take their time to get going. “Left Handed” kicks up quite a storm once it finds its legs, and “Alienation,” which really should have closed up the album, wanders its way into a forest of lush strings and pedal steel.
Faking the Books is a really good record. Even if it’s not scaling any great heights, it certainly shows promise now that they’re breaking out of the Morr mold a bit. Like the Postal Service, they’re a side-project that may just equal the acts who lend their talent.