“Snow Globe”
from the album Guilty Rainbow
2011
iTunes
“Jesus save the Jesus freaks,” sings Kent Lambert at the eerie onset of Guilty Rainbow, the latest album from Roommate. Similarly wry remarks echo over the disc, rife with the kind of socio-religious pokes you’d expect from some angsty coming-of-age songwriter. But Lambert’s no newbie. The Chicago transplant’s been fashioning indie art-pop under the Roommate mantle for the better part of the last decade.
His latest quartet lineup in place, Lambert forges through many moods on his third LP, most of them disconcerting. The understated “Flicker Flame” works as a subtle vehicle for its subject’s bitter ruminations — warm analog synth and vibraphone offset those cold thoughts only slightly, the molasses pace allowing plenty of time for the narrator’s sober worldview to sink in.
An autumnal tint haunts this collection, like the ominous moan snaking through “Soft Eyes” and “Ghost Pigeon.” Washy undertones throb beneath more organic textures, all of it flecked with unpredictable electronics.
Lambert’s a gifted lyricist, examining over and again his unique set of curiosities in these quirky arrangements. When he floats the dark lyric “We won’t feel better / When the winds of change have changed to lazy clouds” on the simmering glitch-pop nugget “Snow Globe,” it’s hard not to get lost in the ennui. Credit Roommate with crafting an album that’s as creepy as it is catchy, even if it is the most cynical thing this side of a Steely Dan record.