“Telling Lies“
from the album Trading Twilight for Daylight
2007
iTunes
California-based quartet Great Northern’s debut album is the kind you want to put on and lay back and bask in the lush melodic haze of it all. The gorgeous blend of haunting male-female harmonies and fantastically fuzzy dream-pop instrumentation creates a beguiling sound that is hard to shake off when over.
Dual lead singers Solon Bixler and Rachel Stolte sound great separate, as on the baton vocals of guitar-infused “Home,” but sound even better when blending their vocals together into one haunting voice as they do on most of the album. Piano and chimes charmer “Our Bleeding Hearts” serves as a perfect introduction to the album, floating by with lush music carrying the melodic vocals of Bixler and Stolte. Guitar winds throughout the album, but the quartet seems comfortable letting piano and strings do most of the work on much of the breezy effort. Great Northern are at their best when staying on the lighter side of things, with enveloping piano-based gem “Low is a Height” and six-minute guitar-laced epic “Just a Dream.”
Tension-filled “Telling Lies” is the most aggressive Great Northern get with any success, built on a more urgent beat and featuring some thrusting guitar riffs that are content to stay hidden earlier in the album; also, where their lyrical skills shine in lines, “It’s like a perfect picture of ordinary life / You hit the bottom to see if you’re alive.” Halfway through the album, on “A Sun a Sound,” the quartet get a bit restless and discard their mellow-chill sound for a more aggressive guitar-heavy sound. Unfortunately, Great Northern’s harder edge does not work half as well as their relaxing side. The distorted guitar fuzz of “Into the Sun” and teeter-totter distortion verses versus dream-pop hook of “The Middle” almost sound as if recorded by another band altogether.
Trading Twilight for Daylight is a haunting album of exceedingly beautiful hazy dream-pop. While Great Northern fails to hold the mellow mood throughout the album, there is plenty of goodness here to keep you pleasantly chilled for a while.