Review: Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros – Up From Below (2009)
Lead singer Alex Ebert takes the stage dressed entirely in white, an oversized undershirt billowing around his willowy frame. “Hi there, my name’s Alex,” he states plainly, as the rest of the band sets up, and they launch almost immediately into “40 Day Dream” to get the crowd heated up early. Seemingly effortlessly and with a great deal of enjoyment, the Edward Sharpe has the crowd enthusiastically swaying to their unique brand of 60s-tinged folk-pop.
Rarely do you see an independent music scene embrace a rag-tag troupe of hippies so willingly. L.A.’s Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros are clearly unconcerned with precedents, either in fashion or genre, and pack a full ten — yes, ten — people on stage whenever they play live. Sounds ridiculous, but honestly the band’s live sound isn’t all that cluttered, just lush. They hoot and holler, shaking their oversized percussion around like some primitive tribe – it’s inescapably engaging. The sheer enormity of their roster creates a sense of stage-to-pit community, particularly when Alex abandons his elevated refuge and ventures down into the crowd, singing right to their faces and riling them up.
All this sounds fantastic, right? We even saw them on an off-night; vocalist Jade Castrinos left the stage (not to return) working a pretty bad buzz about a third of the way through the set, and subsequently the band didn’t even perform “Home,” a crowd favorite that features her vocals prominently. The band was visibly deflated at her absence, but still sounded fairly lively, even toward the end. The fact is, though, that the ornate richness of their live sound doesn’t translate as seamlessly to the studio as one might expect. They have a more modest approach on record, and at the risk of sounding irreverent, it doesn’t do them any favors. Their strength as a band correlates directly to their freedom to incite the foot-stomping material that is communicated at liberty as a live act; in short, it lacks energy.
Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros’ “40 Day Dream,” from Up From Below.
“Home,” as mentioned before, is bracingly genuine and charming, going so far as to feature a playful lovey-dovey dialogue between Jade and Alex during the bridge. In fact, most of the tracks, upbeat or down, have a decent hook (“40 Day Dream,” “Janglin,” “Jade”); often the listener finds a succinct singalong line to embrace and with which to chant along. Multi-instrumentalist Stewart Cole’s buttresses Ebert’s tuneful cowboy mysticism (“Come In Please”) and southwestern romance (“Kisses Over Babylon”) with tasteful trumpet lines, and accordionist Nora Kirpatrick and percussionist Orpheo McCord are like aural coagulant, fattening the attack of the sound and engendering nuance. The consistency is more or less here; there isn’t a bad track on the album, but aside from a few standouts, the album’s songcraft isn’t anything to really gush over.
To be straightforward, it’s likely the band’s irrevocable commitment to hedonism that’s the greatest hindrance to their music. You’ve got a group of ten young people with drug habits and free spirits, a single cramped tour bus (not to mention stage), a laissez-faire writing process, a lead singer with another band to tend to, and an intra-band romance between the two vocalists; enumerating the variables for points of band-failure is practically an exercise in futility. There’s a reason why nobody thought the Red Hot Chili Peppers would last more than a few years, and the list of events that could have done them in career-wise is long indeed. So are are Edward Sharpe around for good? Well, probably not, but we would point to the Keith Richardses and John Frusciantes of the world that rise above despite the odds. Moreover, it doesn’t mean you can’t simply sit back and enjoy a pretty good record, so says “40 Day Dream:” “well, now I’ve been sleeping / for sixty days / nobody better pinch me / bitch, I swear I’ll go crazy!”
