Arizona – Glowing Bird

Occasionally you encounter a band that enters your world seemingly out of nowhere, and you can’t believe that you’ve never heard them before. Somehow, despite your alleged position upon the vanguard, for all of your perusal of various venues exhibiting the latest thing, this one band has slipped below your channels of consumption, even though they’ve being around for over four years. Arizona is such a band. As they have proven with Glowing Bird, they deserve a hell of a lot more attention than they have gotten thus far.

Glowing Bird probes some of the territory currently being marked out by exploratory bands like Grizzly Bear and Akron/Family, but isn’t a mere reiteration of current trendy occupation with densely orchestrated songs or prog wanderings. Arizona is a band unto itself, and on Glowing Bird they successfully mesh heavy, electric guitar driven rock with a mature sense of arrangement and songwriting chops. Grizz and the Family seem to be getting their moment in the sun, so why not these guys?

Glowing Bird starts out innocuously enough with the solidly constructed “Heath.” It swings a little, it’s got its fair share of swelling distortion, and a conventionally good chorus with lyrics that wouldn’t be out of place on an alt-country record (“I feel I have lost something/ I feel it in my bones”). Vocalist Benjamin Morris Wigler sounds like a less misanthropic Jim O’Rourke (who the album sounds to be deeply influenced by) with a better range, with some Doug Martsch thrown in for good measure (see the hard-driving fuzz rock of “Colors” for a fuller Built to Spill homage). But it’s the bridge that really shines, with its burbling distortion, pointillist guitar figures and heady harmonies. It’s an early hint that the record isn’t going to spend most of its time in the comfortable and easy zone of warmed-over country chords.

The next song, “Balloon,” is the first left turn of the album. It begins with a languid French horn and cello waltz that might most easily be described as courtly. The song itself is a little too saccharine to fit in with the rest of the album, and the lyrical subject matter concerns a balloon salesman. Regarding his occupation: “It’s the sugar/ In his coffee/ It’s the cream/ inside his beans.” The fairy-tale cheesiness of the whole affair is one of the album’s few weak spots, along with “Ghost.” “Ghost” reprises “Balloon’s” preciousness but is served up by second vocalist Alex Hornblake. His voice recalls a shakier Phil Elvrum (of Microphones/Mount Eerie), and lends the song a character a bit too ethereal (hence the subject matter, a ghost haunting someone’s house). It’s darker than the rest of the album, and similarly to “Balloon,” feels like an outlier when jammed up against the other numbers. Both would work on a different album, but for Glowing Bird they’re a little much.

Fortunately, the remainder of the songs retain a cohesion that showcases Arizona’s strengths, of which there are many. Electric and acoustic guitars are equally front-and-center, but share space with keys, more cello, upright bass, non-drum kit percussion, and vocal harmonies. Despite the surplus of ideas and instrumentation, the album never feels overwrought. Arizona achieves this by keeping the essence of the songs (guitar and vocals) at the forefront. A less adept band would likely get mired in the maximalism of some of the songs, but Arizona stays admirably focused.

Take for example “The Glowing Bird.” It indulges both the band’s propensity for odd time signatures (see also “Swimming Hole” or “Otto The Eel”), music school guitar aptitude, 6/8 classic rock grooves, acoustic sections, and harmony. Whew. But they handle it incredibly well, and each seemingly oppositional section sits, well-behaved, next to the preceding. It all reaches a climax that blends the elements of the last three minutes into a new but totally logical coda. It’s really the perfect distillation of what the album as a whole achieves.

So tastemakers take heed: spread the buzz of Arizona. Get the greasy gears of the blogosphere going. They’ve paid their dues and kick as much ass as any of their peers. Glowing Bird, while not perfect, should nonetheless cement Arizona’s rightful spot as a shining fixture of the contemporary musical landscape.

Tagged as: Asheville, Rock

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