Ida
Will You Find Me
[Tiger Style]
Rating: 5.9
50% of the songs on Ida's new record contain the words "sleep," "bed," "weariness,"
"night," "slow," "crawl," or "late." 35% of the songs on the record contain the word
"love." So, if you're expecting Will You Find Me to be a collection of tired
love songs, you're correct on many levels. Not only does the record act as a powerful
sedative, it also stands as a perfect example of how conscious attempts to construct
a specific type of album can suffocate a band. Ida try to be pretty like the Dwarves
try to be badass, replacing power chords and the word "fuck" with male-female harmonies
and lyrics about butterflies.
"Down on Your Back," one of the Will You Find Me's many appropriately titled
songs, is a perfect thesis statement for Ida's bland audio tranquilizer. High-pitched
female and falsetto male vocals sing over delicately plucked guitars as if to clarify
that the music is, in fact, very, very pretty. But even those delicate harmonies can't
save a lyric like "all your secrets collide" from its Bonnie Tyler overtones.
Ida is a model case for style over substance. Throughout this record, their goal is
solely to be pretty. They attempt to achieve this through singing in major 3rds, 4ths,
and 5ths, a techinique which could have had decent results if they'd varied their chord
progressions. This gets especially tiring during a 6+ minute-long epic like "Maybelle,"
when the overwhelming prettiness fades into a completely innocuous, unaffecting backdrop.
The majority of Will You Find Me does nothing to break this mold. A slow-to-mid
tempo is maintained for the album's entire hour-long duration, with flourishes of guitar,
piano, and occasional keyboards piping up once in a while. Sadly, these temporary brushes
with interest are minuscule, and fail to rouse the listener from their comatose slumber.
At times, the album does grab your attention, but never for the right reasons. The album's
indisputable low point comes with "Past the Past," a song whose title could have been
penned by the Promise Ring or Bright Eyes. It's an appropriate comparison, too, as the
track suffers from sometimes-singer Daniel Littleton's excessively emotional vocals.
I use the term "emotional" loosely, though.
Will You Find Me could have been a record brimming with genuine emotion-- an album
made by four people truly interested in getting their feelings down on tape. But I'm
inherently suspicious of a record which tries so hard to be this sensitive. From
the soft-focus pictures of shy-looking band members on the cover art, to songs with titles
like "Don't Be Sad," Ida never miss an opportunity to remind you that they are, as All
Music Guide puts it, "the best band in the country at writing those pretty songs that
make you want to get cozy with your sweetie."
To make matters worse, occasionally passionate lyrics are met with the same bland musical
treatment as those that actually fit Ida's sonic Demerol. "We were like kids with a shotgun/
Blowing up words till there were none," is given the same musical treatment as, "I could
watch you sleep for hours/ Without noticing that it's getting really late." But despite
the fact that the band seems to have set out to create a mature, affecting record this time
around, the painfully self-aware nature of their endeavor has rendered any stirring impact
the album might have harbored dead on arrival.
-Matt LeMay