The much-maligned ""sophomore slump"" some artists supposedly experience on their second album is more than a cliché at this point; it is a foregone conclusion. And there was cause for concern that the tUnE-yArDs' sophomore album would not be able to live up to their scintillatingly raw debut, BiRd-BrAiNs. Merrill Garbus, who fronts the group, recorded her first album entirely on voice recorder out of necessity—she didn't have a band to play with. Despite her Spartan setup, Garbus was able to draw out the expansive sound of The Dirty Projectors, a group Garbus has toured Europe with and who she has referred to as a personal ""hero band.""
After listening to w h o k i l l, however, it is abundantly clear that Garbus, a budding Pitchfork Media sweetheart, is suffering from no such slump. In fact, there isn't a throw-away song on the album. If anything, Garbus has refined her sound to the perfect amount of pop while maintaining enough rawness to attract explorers of the eccentric.
Garbus has experience with improvisation, both in theater and music, and it is easy to see spontaneity is a characteristic she values highly in her music. Her vocals are like an aural dance performance—at times they will be constrained and almost meek, only to rip through the track at a moment's notice with the aplomb of Debbie Harry or Siouxsie Sioux.
And while indie frontwomen are often relegated to roles such as the vulnerable songstress (Feist, Best Coast), the precious artist (Joanna Newsom, Imogen Heap) or the sexed-up Riot Grrl (Karen O, M.I.A.), Garbus eschews these roles by combining them, and the resulting amalgam of personas is refreshing as hell.
On ""Es-So,"" Garbus alternates old-timey songbird lyrics with a jabbing impersonation of a spoiled, preppy girl that many students on this campus can relate to. It is also a meditation on self-mutilation with lines like, ""Sometimes I've got the jungle under my skin / Draw back the rib and stick a fucking fork in,"" and ""I run over my own body with my own car."" It sounds morbid in print, but the airy melody staves off any potential for melodrama.
The most infectious track on the album is ""Gangsta,"" which combines ska horns and Garbus' irrepressible swagger to infectious effect. Beneath the disjointed pop of the song there's an undeniable hard-rock sensibility, especially with the line, ""Bang bang bang! / He never moved to my hood / 'Cause danger is crawlin' out the way.""
After the helter-skelter car chase that is ""Gangsta"" comes ""Powa,"" a summery stroll through the thicket of Garbus' vocal range. Accompanied by jam-rock guitars and candid confessions about her love life, it is the most thematically straightforward pop song on the album.
Garbus admits she has always been fascinated with the role of music in culture—her interest in world music, especially African music, shows in her songwriting. She studied in Kenya, knows Swahili and is trained in African dance.
As a result, there is an undeniable Afro-Caribbean influence on songs like ""Bizness,"" an influence Garbus relates back to her studies in Kenya and interest in the entwined relationship between music and folk culture. Where other groups like Vampire Weekend draw from West African pop to define their punky aesthetic, Garbus succeeds at fusing world beat stylings with pop-punk sensibility in such a way that neither genre is lost in the mix.
Without question, w h o k i l l is already one of the standout albums of 2011, far from conforming to the ""sophomore slump"" myth. Garbus, after all, obeys few things with her songwriting, most of all convention.
