Rilo Kiley - 'Under The Blacklight' (Warner Bros) Released 27/08/07

Its been three years since Rilo Kiley’s last offering, with band members busying themselves with a variety of other projects in the meantime, from front woman Jenny Lewis‘s soulful solo album to guitarist Blake Sennett‘s work with The Elected, while bassist Jason Boesel went off and hung about with Bright Eyes. Yet on the basis of this, their partly self-produced major label debut, not that much has changed, with their prior strong commitment to catchy yet quirky indie still firmly intact. Framed around a series of vignettes about the seedier side of Los Angeles life, from hookers to one night stands ‘Under The Blacklight’ is focused on showing off Lewis’s stinging song writing.

The quartet have always possessed a woozy country and western slur to go with their indie rock fire, but they’ve expanded their musical boundaries further here, with a whacking great glitter ball of disco now looming overhead too. Whether that’s a good thing is open to debate but at least it adds something unexpected. Certainly, both the shimmering stroll of opener ’Silver Lining’ and the prostitute tale of ‘Close Call’ succeed in getting things off on a good note, as does the swaggering sleaze funk of ‘The Moneymaker’, a track which appears designed to fit on a film soundtrack whenever there’s a need for a scene involving, ahem, gentleman’s clubs.

These tracks bring out the best in Lewis in particular, her voice especially sounding sultry on ’Close Call’, before crunching guitars land blow after blow. It’s not all darkness and gloom though, with the upbeat dance pop of ‘Breakin Up’ being a jubilant celebration of a relationship’s end, a sort of indie ’I Will Survive’. And the soulful ’Dreamworld’ is smoother than a good cup of coffee, while the venomous thrust is back and at its strongest on ‘15’, a sordid tale of lust gone wrong, set to a panicky jazzy/blues backing.

While Rilo Kiley’s songs do feature some boldness, with several musical genres overlapping, there are times on Under The Blacklight where it might be best if they tried to be more consistent. Instead of the album’s lynchpin, the title track is a wishy washy folk number, that meanders about and sounds vaguely like the twee musings of the Corrs. Similarly, album closer ‘Give A Little Love’ is a huge anti climax as instead of sending the album off on a high note some muppet thought it best if things concluded with a dismal soft rock/power pop number, like Fleetwood Mac if they’d been produced by Stock, Aitken and Waterman. It’s these moments that really disappoint as at the exact time when something rousing is required, a gaping void is left instead.

That’s not to say these errors totally overwrite the earlier successes, far from it. ‘Under The Blacklight’ still contains examples of songwriting par excellence, with a surprisingly funky edge lurking underneath. Yet, there’s still something a tad flat about Rilo Kiley, and while this is satisfactory enough, it doesn’t offset the nagging feeling that the band are still missing that magical ingredient to cap it all off.