Architecture in Helsinki
Fri May 27
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside
Beneath all of the schizophrenic song structures, expansive membership, and mountains of instrumentation, Architecture in Helsinki is not a neo-psyche band, an experimental folk collective, or even a chamber pop orchestra. No, what Architecture in Helsinki is, at heart, is a twee pop band. Let me repeat that for accurate emphasis: Architecture in Helsinki is a twee pop band. Got it? Cool.
Now that all the assholes have stopped reading, the rest of us can get down to brass tacks: An Australian band composed of eight regular members and countless contributors, Architecture in Helsinki twist twee pop conventions in ways that completely transcend the genre’s preconceptions–a ploy that essentially amounts to dragging twee’s quaint, antiquated corpse of a sound into the 21st. Like any pop band paying airfare for eight bodies, it’s fair to expect that Architecture in Helsinki would cover a pretty wide sonic palette, but most would hardly anticipate the kind of stagger-stopped saccharine sensitivity the Aussies deliver. The band has released two masterful records to date–the first, Fingers Crossed, is a radiant debut that somehow makes eight voices and dozens of instruments sound like a whispered lullaby, with a sound that’s modern, precise, and precious without feeling a lick cloying. Fingers Crossed is deceptively simple, but with enough clutter to nearly justify the amount of stage space they take up.
After a debut stuffed with enough subtle manipulation to fill out the 7″ discographies of a dozen lesser bands, Architecture dropped this year’s In Case We Die, a 12-song prog-pop opus that’s as bloated as it is concise. Though still perhaps a little behind the experimental curve, In Case We Die feels like some serious next level shit in terms of twee-pop–with ground covered including confident dance pop, touches of playschool Morricone, an Anglo-island sound occasionally reminiscent of Orange Juice, a triumphant war cry chorus now and again, and maybe even a touch of off-Broadway musical–all with an average running time of about three and a half minutes. Fact is, AIH effortlessly shoves as many ideas into three and a half minutes as it takes the Fiery Furnaces a clunky nine (which, I guess makes sense–there are only two of them)–a sugar-high sort of pace that though occasionally oppressive in its theatricality, never feels forced or contrived. There is certainly precedence for this sort of elaborate, mega-faceted pop palette (Of Montreal, a band playing Doug Fir the day after our protagonists, come to mind), but few do so with either the sincerity or subtlety seen throughout In Case We Die–a record that, unlike a lot of Technicolor pop, feels thoroughly modern in it’s fiber. That said, Architecture in Helsinki’s blissful bombast certainly isn’t for everyone–its cute and cluttered compositions are enough to give the dourest among us a crippling sugar migraine. For the rest, Architecture in Helsinki might just enliven the hope we’ve long since abandoned: Twee-pop for those convinced we have outgrown twee-pop. And with In Case We Die, they’ve succeeded in an undertaking adventurous enough to make twee-pop seem relevant again.