It's an experience lost on our generation, but one of the coolest things about record players was how they enabled their users to size up an album with the flick of their fingers.
I grew up on Stevie Wonder's Songs In The Key of Life, so for me, a slight adjustment of the needle and my speakers would jolt from the bursting horns of ""Sir Duke"" to the smooth harmonica of ""Isn't She Lovely.""
It's a good thing I didn't grow up playing with Papercuts' Fading Parade, because practically all of its 38 minutes sound identical and form a hazy wash of reverb-drenched monotony. Shifting the needle to any point on the record would sound like little more than skips in a really long, drawn-out song.
Throughout his career, Papercuts' main man Jason Quever has drawn comparisons to—and earned touring spots with—indie stars Beach House and Grizzly Bear, with his emotive melodies and sunny delivery. And while Papercuts' fourth album finds Quever's voice once again implanted in a sea of organs, guitars and drums, something's off this time, resulting in an album that's heavy on atmosphere and lacking in substance.
Opening tracks ""Do You Really Want To Know"" and ""Do What You Will"" provide the album's best moments with uplifting choruses and tight rhythms, but they don't come close to finding the warmth or straight-up appeal of past gems ""You Can Have What You Want"" or ""John Brown."" Closer ""Charades"" also starts promisingly, evoking the sunny guitar arpeggios of the band Real Estate.
While Fading Parade starts and ends at a peak, the middle stretch of songs—which for such a short album sounds painfully protracted—pulls the album into an abyss of mediocrity it can't escape.
Guitars and tambourine anchor ""I'll See You Later I Guess,"" a song that drones on as tediously as its title. ""Chills"" offers a feuding three-part harmony between guitar, organ and Quever's voice, but fizzles out before anything momentous develops. ""White Are The Waves"" pits swelling piano and guitar jaunts against indiscernible lyrics. ""The Messenger"" is plain boring. And so on.
Interestingly enough, Fading Parade will probably receive as much, if not more, attention than any of its predecessors. By signing to Sub-Pop Records and continuing very much in the vein of fellow Sub-Poppers The Shins and Beach House, Papercuts is sure to get more attention in the indiesphere, but Fading Parade isn't likely to bring them nearly the same acclaim.
The self-recorded, bedroom-pop style that shaped Fading Parade is often successful—perfectly suiting the monologues of artists Kurt Vile, Here We Go Magic and Quever's earlier work. But ultimately the subtle, atmospheric elements only work insofar as there's something captivating underlying them. On Papercuts' past two albums, 2009's You Can Have What You Want and 2007's Can't Go Back, it may have taken some palate dissecting to uncover their intrigue, but there was something always waiting to be discovered. Fading Parade, however, sounds as empty the fifth time around as it did the first.
I don't know how much thought Quever put into titling his record Fading Parade, and based on some of its track names, I'd guess not a lot. But it's surprisingly fitting. On one hand, Quever's recording style makes the album sound extremely distant; like a cross-town parade that you can vaguely decipher through the noise of the town. On the other, Quever's work here is but a sliver of its former self; what once was a triumphant march has slowed to mere stagger.
