School Of Seven Bells – Disconnected From Desire
Vagrant Records: 2010
I’ll give most any album a full listen, granted that first track punches out a few teeth. I subscribe to the belief that an album is a full work of art, which is most appreciated in the following steps: sit back in your favorite recliner, throw on a nice pair of headphone and press play. Don’t skip ahead and don’t backtrack. Give the album one good listen all the way through. Annotate the album cover. Read the lyrics. Pay attention to the changes in tone between songs. The order of songs can be a powerful thing. Most musicians are very meticulous about set lists and even more so about song order on an album. If you’re an opening band, you don’t want to open with your best song, because most people show up late to shows. But on an album, it’s best to surprise your listeners with something catchy, something new. School Of Seven Bells came out swinging on their new album Disconnected From Desire.
This trio includes twin-sisters Alejandra and Claudia Deheza, formerly of On! Air! Library, and Benjamin Curtis of Secret Machines. The group flaunts their new sound on this sophomore album with the track “Windstorm”. Catchy electric synthetics open the song, but dissipate, leaving room for vocals as elegant as they are beautifully written, singing “windmills cut through, the voids of riding the imagined and true as they neglect to see what the heart pursues but my heart finds a dream in these unseen views, in the untouchable.” Curtis assists the vocals and rarely overpowers the Deheza sisters’ unmistakable harmonies.
With a three piece band, in which two out of the three are singing, you have to give Benjamin Curtis credit where credit is due. With a guitar over his shoulder and what I can assume is a stock pile of electronics at his waist, Curtis makes up for what this album often lacks—distinct rhythm. While drum machines can provide the illusion of a rhythm section, they never quite complement this album’s potential.
A refreshingly familiar sound emanates from the track “Heart Is Strange.” This track is some twisted wormhole into the eighties, like when every other girl in San Francisco was sporting American Apparel leg warmers. Only this is truly refreshing and comfortably familiar. Lyrics in “Heart Is Strange” start the album’s trend that points toward abstract topics of love and relationships. Drum machines aside, this track touts the best vocal melody on the album.
From afar, Disconnected From Desire is proof that this seemingly cute trio has matured into a more specific, palpable sound. Since their debut album Alpinisms released in 2008, School of Seven Bells has stepped back from the metronome vocal melodies that defined “Half Asleep”and “Conjurr”. They’ve opened up and relaxed their singing, which is by far the most enticing aspect of Disconnected From Desire.
3.5 out of 5
