After years of mere subsistence on the scraps of electronic, jazz and rock influences, Baltimore’s Lake Trout has finally gotten its own meal ticket. At the end of the three-year breadline is Not Them, You, their final small step toward their just desserts. Although the ingredients haven’t changed much since Another One Lost, it’s all in the presentation, and producer Tony Doogan’s gourmet touch makes the difference. Instead of the old dreary yet satisfying stew, the newest disc dishes up distinct alternative and indie rock, still seasoned with the electronic melancholy of their last good meal, but served in separate courses on fine china, rather than a single scoop in a pauper’s bowl.
“Shiny Wrapper” is an arid appetizer for the album’s rich production, but James Griffith’s bass and Matt Pierce’s flute smooth out the rigid verse, and Mike Lowry’s cymbals launch Woody Ranere’s vocals into a fragmented dream. Other apparent contradictions follow—Griffith fills in a jagged jigsaw melody on “Pill,” waiting for Ranere’s slide to reveal the big picture, and the Norman Bates piano riff of “Riddle” fuels Griffith and Lowry’s distorted paranoia until Ed Harris’s organic guitar break soothes their nerves—but Doogan manages to tie it all together before the main course.
Huge Tabernacle harmonies strengthen the cavernous silence between the bass and guitar on “If I Can,” and the contrived lyrical war protest of “Forward March” is buoyed by Ranere’s haunting vocal chorus and a chiming guitar riff that tolls the march as the drums set the cadence. Further empowered by his own angelic choir on the Stones’ “Street Fighting Man,” Ranere wails from the top of “Peel” as his bandmates burn the building down in a pixelated guitar riot.
Ranere’s falsetto “Honey” sweetly soothes the tension, but while the acoustic serenity of “King” and “Systematic Self” also calm the album’s big rock dissonance, several other ambient acoustic numbers threaten to unravel the few threads that tie this sometimes disparate collection together. These tiny ambiguities reveal the band’s newfound identify, however: While the songs on Another One Lost relied heavily on the album’s overall mood, most of Not Them, You stands strongly on its own. While the jingle jangle love tumble of “Now We Know” and the bouncy pop of “Have You Ever” stick out like oversweet chocolates amidst the album’s rock and roll heat, all of it is finally and distinctively Lake Trout, and that’s a dish only Baltimore could serve up.
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