land of talk: cloak & cipher

Montreal trio Land Of Talk almost didn’t make it to a second album after singer Elizabeth Powell suffered a haemorrhaged vocal polyp that caused her to cancel their 2009 tour and spend six months in recovery. Never one to hang about, though, the sometime member of Broken Social Scene put that time to good use writing songs, and the resulting record, Cloak & Cipher, features contributions from fellow Canadian Patrick Watson, as well as members of Stars, Arcade Fire, Thee Silver Mt. Zion, Wintersleep, Besnard Lakes and Esmerine.

The disguised vocal of the title track sets the scene for all ten songs, whose meanings are obscured and intentions veiled throughout. Some neat touches like the sampled intro and the closing smash and tinkle of a piano are thrown away and don’t resurface later, intriguing in their brevity. Opening out into a woozy, Cocteau Twins-alike swirl, ‘Goaltime Exposure’ gets wonderfully dizzy before introducing the twin-hook structure that becomes familiar through the rest of the album, and the sweet yet rather noncommittal vocal is reminiscent of a sleepy Tanya Donnelly. A sweep of strings is introduced five minutes in, and some of the other songs could use a similar addition of texture. ‘Quarry Hymns’, featuring Arcade Fire drummer Jeremy Gara drifts in an characteristically angst-free manner, it’s “How deep is this hole I feel I’m in?” chorus and delicate guitar work sadly buried beneath shoegaze layers.

Cloak & Cipher seems to find its feet at the midway point with ‘Color Me Badd’ – not ostensibly an ode to the questionable early ’90s R&B boy band of the same name, but rather a floaty and questioning song asking, “Where did my body go / where did I leave it?”. Next, ‘The Hate I Won’t Commit’ provides a more forceful tune backed up by a solid rhythm that seems positively angry compared with the wistfulness of the rest of the record. Jagged grunge guitars and a bassline that kicks the whole thing up a notch towards the end make it the closest Land Of Talk ever get to really letting loose. ‘Blangee Blee’ provides one of Powell’s more oblique lyrics and casts back to the ’90s so far it might as well be wearing a plaid shirt (oh, wait, that’s fashionable again?), while a guitar solo of sorts is hidden amid a wall of fuzz too polite to be called feedback.

Despite all the guests there is nothing flashy amid Cloak & Cipher‘s overall sheen and shimmer. A hidden final track again toys with the concepts suggested by the album title, but is merely a breathy, thin acoustic strum. Like the rest of the album, it would benefit from a stronger personality and a little more force.

[Arts & Crafts; August 30]

Written by: Lucy Brouwer

Tags: cloak and cipher, land of talk

This entry was posted on Monday, September 6th, 2010 at 8:58 am and is filed under albums & EPs, reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.