A large part of making either successful or appealing music today is figuring out how far away you want to keep listeners while still providing them with empathetic emotion or sentiment to grasp. From ambience to pop, today's music requires either hidden, artistic accessibility or transparent pop sensibilities. Phantogram can be seen as hanging in perfect balance between an open sound like Chairlift or the xx and the abrasive, sometimes confusing sounds of Hot Chip or of Montreal.
Phantogram often give off a vibe that they are just playing around with different sounds and riffs. Whether or not this is to show off how adept they are or if it's just because they are that good, it has both positive and negative effects. The lead vocals find themselves swimming aimlessly in swirling production on ""You Are The Ocean,"" but appropriately enough, the climax feels vibrant after different levels are done interacting. This becomes symptomatic of many songs on Eyelid Movies, which makes them both frustrating and rewarding. Each song employs different lines of production that interact on various levels—often to unfulfilling ends—before Phantogram decide to turn them all loose and unveil the vivid imagery and emotion that built up.
""Mouthful of Diamonds"" carries the xx feel, only not as wispy or intimate. The beat is busy but not overzealous, and when the melody comes in after each chorus evolves in frustration, it gives the slightly dubstep beat taken from the introduction a full assault of color, as if lead singer Sarah Barthel just landed in Oz.
""When I'm Small"" represents one of the few filler songs with layered progressions, an uninspired beat with underlying sexual connotations that leave it appropriately small in stature. But ""Turn it Off"" allows that sound to grow by grasping at extremes. It hits a deep register with a whole note bass line, and along with an unconventional beat and hazy, layered vocals and guitar in the background, it makes the culmination of the final chorus yet another epiphany, bringing to life the simple lines with sincerity: ""I could have been easier on you / I should have been / A little bit easier on you.""
""As Far as I Can See"" picks up a trip-hop feel, representing the peak of their affectations. A slightly unnatural beat mixes with samples that feel pieced together, layering to create distance between the underlying sentiments. It has the simplest lyrics and most consistent accessibility as everything blends together in an inexplicable harmony reminiscent of the disjointedness of Bitte Orca, making it the most memorable track on the album.
Maybe only because it's recent, but Teen Dream stands out as a close comparison, and while that record is definitely more polished and practiced than Eyelid Movies, the lofty comparison is not unwarranted. The problem for Phantogram is that they never find their own niche. The eccentricity of indie electropop like of Montreal and the accessibility of Chairlift flank Phantogram, leaving them hopeful to find a middling group of lost listeners. Yet if they're aspiring for any sound, it's of the xx or Beach House. However, their sound is not as cohesive and singular.
Instead, touches of trip hop and dubstep hide their accessibility behind walls of what are just layers of timidity, which is the product of Phantogram's willingness to try too hard to make more conventional approaches hip and groovy. This dilutes their sound and leaves behind most of the aesthetic cohesiveness that they establish through the unique ingredients they do throw in. When they are subject to so many recent peer comparisons, cohesiveness is essential to setting a band apart and reminding listeners something unique is offered in return. But as they stand on Eyelid Movies, they are a lonely, attractive marble left in the middle of the board in the expansive game of Hungry Hungry Hippos that indie music acceptance can represent at times.
