“Wet and Rusting”
from the album Friend and Foe
2007
iTunes
MP3 – “Wet and Rusting” [right-click/save-as]
When Menomena followed up their highly praised 2003 pop/experimental/electronic debut I am the Fun Blame Monster with the fantastic but esoteric three-part modern dance soundtrack Under an Hour, it seemed like either a scene sidestep or a career choke. Their new Friend and Foe shows that the Portland three had a whole lot more from where The Fun Blame came. The album is full of big pop anthems with impeccable arrangements and engineering — it calls to mind latter-day Flaming Lips, the most melancholic moments of Spoon or a less bombastic Arcade Fire. In other words, esoteric is fine for your autumn years (Zaireeka party anyone?) but give us a few Friend and Foes first.
Piano, vocals and drums drive third track “Wet and Rusting,” but as on their debut, a small army of textures help fill in the main structure. Only two or three appear at a time, each trading spaces with others in rhythm. Synth choir voices become piano become acoustic guitar, a cello line morphs back into the piano. It’s a lesson in sonic congruence, where Menomena fit different sounds into the same shape until the brain is tricked into hearing it as one continuous line. About halfway through, the bass steps forward and the piano moves all around it. In the negative space, the band’s stellar head-trip production comes to the fore, as does that eerie reverse reverb trick lifted from Spoon’s Kill the Moonlight.
While Brent Knopf’s vocals generally recall those of TV on the Radio‘s Kyp Malone, here they carry the winsome sadness of Archer Prewitt. The song’s theme is initially stated as “It’s hard to take risks with a pessimist,” but each variation reveals that the singer is “tired of being faithful” to said bummer love. Then, two-thirds of the way through, an impish voice not unlike Stephin Merritt sings a countermelody that “this is the closest I will come to touching you the way I want to,” leading to conjecture that there might be two pessimists in this tale. Many a great romance in the indie tradition has begun from the meeting of such similarly awkward minds. As for Menomena, the romance is back in full bloom.