Learning a new language is tough. Inventing a new language is practically friggin’ impossible. Don’t tell The Nein though; with each new stride, they’re emerging from the murky depths of imitation with something entirely Nu. Like most torch-carrying innovators — who would rather invent than re-invent — The Nein’s growing pains are painfully obvious, and their ability to keep their sonic dalliances shaped to fit into the human ear will determine whether they follow through on the new-morning promise of Luxury or descend to the depths of its frequent inanity.
Rather than close the shutters every time a new storm’s afoot, The Nein let the wind and rain encroach their humble abode. All of their arrangements are dripping wet as a result. Songs that would be simple electronic synth lullabies in the hands of a run-of-the-mill act turn into kitchen-sink suites with more going on in the background than the foreground. Familiar elements — which serve as Luxury’s comfort foods — exist within the slopes of each track, but you’ll be too busy ogling the shiny digital-age contours to even notice most of the time.
Strangely, The Nein seem to work best when they’re running light and loose or when they sound discombobulated. When an even remotely human aspect touches these compositions, the whole forward-thinking gist gets lost in the muddle of a lukewarm vocal presence and beats that tend to get stolid when isolated. In other words, the more clutter the better. Unlike certain other similarly inclined groups, The Nein don’t have the vocal chops to make up for other deficiencies and therefore are required to inject intrigue in other ways.
“Decollage” is a perfect example of the pros and cons of The Nein. It splays out like a ‘How To’ for aspiring avant-garde musicians at first. Based around a rudimentary strand of crudely plucked acoustic guitar and distant drum loops, the track unwinds for a few moments after the spare intro; it arches its back and cracks its knuckles, then accents an incoming tribal tom rhythm with glittered dots of effects and a subdued organ drone. Everything is quite prototypical, experimentally speaking; that is, until the flat-out average — if that — vocals send “Decollage” careening back to earth with a bang. From there, things only get as good as the vocals allow them to, which is substantially worse than one would predict after hearing the first few bars.
And so it goes... and goes... and goes. For all its initial luster and creativity, Luxury is all too human, an extraterrestrial album that sounds like it was remixed by some white dude that never took voice lessons (with the exception of “The Future Crumbles,” which somehow transcends the vocal follies with some nice Daniel Johnston-esque bleating). The few tracks with manipulated singing work the best, so here’s to hoping the next Nein album takes the quartet even further away from the gravitational pull of tradition.
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