So I went into this EL VY thing thinking it was going to be straight up trash, and yes, some of it is not very good, but upon my initial listen, I surmised that it is also not nearly as horrible and unlistenable as I was imagining.
I suppose I should back up a little bit here, and first, can we talk a moment about Matt Berninger’s hair? Dude needs to get a haircut, like, for real. But maybe I’m just super jealous of the fact that I am 32 and lost all my hair six years ago, and have to be bald for the rest of my life, and Berninger is in his early 40s and while his hairline has started to recede, he has got these long, luxurious locks that he is choosing to let flow freely on the cover of this album.
Also, I need his glasses.
Hey so Matt Berninger, the voice behind The National, started a new project and it’s called EL VY (pronounced as the plural of Elvis). He started it with one of the members of Menomena. Remember them? They were an indie band that you may have paid attention to in 2007, back when “indie rock” was a thing, and quirky, poppy, “arty” bands like this were a dime a dozen, getting “Best New Music” reviews on Pitchfork, getting airplay on 89.3 The Current, and then pretty much imploding within a year or two, due to total lack of interest.
I mean you may as well have said that my pal started a band with a member of Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah, or even Tapes ‘n Tapes.
It seems like an unlikely combination, but Brent Knopf of Menomena (and also something called Ramona Falls, which I have never heard of) and Berninger have started this band together—and to say that EL VY sounds like uninspired indie rock, circa the mid 2000s, with Berninger’s booming baritone resonating over the top of it is both selling it short, but also perfectly describing what occurs on Return to The Moon, the duo’s debut effort.
I guess the main thing is that it takes almost the entire running time of the album to get used to the idea of Matt Berninger singing over a different style of music, because his voice kind of is The National, you know? Like musically The National are great, with their two-sets of twins thing, and the strong drumming and double electric guitar theatrics, etc., but really—let’s face it, part of the draw of the band is Berninger’s unique voice, delivering what used to be very evocative and vague lyrics over what amounted to brooding, moody indie rock.
EL VY is not brooding or moody. It’s restless—with Knopf steering the craft when it comes to the music, it can’t really find a distinct sound to stick with. It opens with a borderline funky and up-tempo titular track, before descending into one of the album’s low points—the lowbrow humor and generic Black Keys-esq ‘rawk’ of “I’m The Man to Be.”
The word “generic” is what I kept returning to when trying to describe each track—it’s nearly all very flat and unimpressive sounding, and the real issue lies within Return to The Moon collapsing under its own weight. It’s a very slickly produced record. Everything sounds like a million bucks with lots of studio trickery sprinkled throughout—the drums are crisp and the guitar solos have just the right amount or reverb coming off of them. It’s meticulous really, but the façade can’t sustain just how uninteresting the music actually is.
And part of the problem here also is that I don’t feel like Knopf is as technically gifted of a musician as Berninger’s counterparts in The National are, therefore when comparing the two bands due to his presence (which I should really stop doing) The National continue to shine with their intricate arrangements, and EL VY arrives being very dull and base level in its indie rock trappings.
But it’s not all bad—otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered wasting my time writing a review, right?
There are moments that are more successful than the parts that falter, specifically when EL VY explores a softer, less obnoxious affect like on the slow burning, shimmering “It’s A Game;” and there are listenable moments buried within all that indie rock posturing—there is something immediate and visceral about the snarl of “Sad Case.”
That softer, slow burning side is what the duo explores in the album’s final track, “Carless,” which is by far the best out of the bunch—perhaps it has something to do with the fact that due to its slow burning nature, it is the EL VY song that sound most reminiscent of The National. It also finds Berninger at the most evocative he’s been on the entirety of Return to The Moon—“Don’t know what we’re waiting for,” he sings. “People like us don’t ever switch our videos from scene to scene.”
The sad thing about the song “Careless,” is that it ends—rather suddenly, as does the album. The thing spends its running time waiting to hit this beautiful stride, and then it’s gone.
I don’t know what the future holds for EL VY. Berninger and Knopf are taking it seriously enough to tour behind Return to The Moon, but side projects are easy to start (just ask Chino Moreno) and notoriously difficult to sustain (again, just ask Chino Moreno.) So it’s really uncertain if there is life beyond these 11 tracks or if this was just a weird one-off deal—to me, it doesn’t seem like there is enough life within these song to sustain it past this.
Sometimes I think of side projects as a bit of a musical mid-life crisis—like Nick Cave’s Grinderman project, where he exercised all kinds of rock and roll smarm before retreating back to the piano for his work with The Bad Seeds. EL VY seems like it may be Berninger’s way of getting out any restless energy he may have built up prior to focusing on another National album (which is thankfully in the works.) However, Berninger and Knopf are like a mismatched musical duo, and it shows in the confounding results that arrive with Return to The Moon, and album that certainly doesn’t lack ambition, but blatantly lacks focus.
Rating: 2/5