Places Like This

About

Among the surge of indie-pop collectives in the mid-2000s, Architecture In Helsinki served up some of the most gleeful arrangements of them all. Where a band like Arcade Fire found grandeur in the greys of morning, Architecture In Helsinki celebrated life in Technicolor. The Melbourne troupe approached their vast arsenal of instruments with childlike whimsy on the sticky-sweet revelries of 2003’s <i>Fingers Crossed</i> and 2005’s <i>In Case We Die</i>. By 2007’s <i>Places Like This</i>, the octet had slimmed down to six members, but their sound seemingly doubled in urgency. Fresh off a move to Brooklyn, frontman Cameron Bird set the band’s pace in overdrive, inspired by his bustling new surroundings in a prominently Puerto Rican neighborhood. Indeed, there’s an underlying Caribbean spirit in the steel-drum rhythms of sun-soaked rave-ups “Heart It Races” and “Lazy (Lazy).” But much of the maximalist pop speaks more to the chaos of inner-city living, with a jumble of horns, guitars, and Casios fighting for footpath space. Bird barrels through it all—breathlessly growling, warbling, and wailing—as co-vocalist Kellie Sutherland shouts along, encouraging the frenzied sing-alongs of dance-punk doozies “Hold Music” and “Debbie.” To close their most playfully shambolic album, “Same Old Innocence'' aptly serves as an affirmation of Architecture In Helsinki’s burning need to color way outside the lines.

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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