Local Natives 'Gorilla Manor' (Infectious) Released 02/11/09

Who exactly are Local Natives? Well they're certainly not Fleet Foxes, that much they want you to believe. On the artwork of their debut album, 'Gorilla Manor', their faces are de-constructed and morphed into a scattering of colours and shapes. The album in itself corresponds to this by crafting an almost endless range of personas and atmospheres within the songs that are played. Local Natives can go from sounding like one band to another completely different identity in a flash and hey, whilst that's a pretty good showcase of talent, the only band they don't sound like is Local Natives.

'Gorilla Manor' has no coherent identity pushing the songs and putting a stamp on a sound that has been so neatly played with by many other bands in recent times. The rich, layered approach to the album can be discovered in the music of Grizzly Bear, Field Music and granted, although 'Gorilla Manor' doesn't have the budget of 'Veckatimest', something needs to be done to sweep this album away from the comparisons that so obviously irritate the band. Be it an orchestra, an arrival of abstract interludes, whatever; you crave for a unique move to strike out from the album but alas, it never happens.

Regular visitors come in the form of luscious vocal harmonies, warm and cuddly, giving the album a comforting autumnal feel. They work most efficiently in 'Warning Sign' and 'Stranger Things', both ambitious projects that help define the record as something more than just a dabbling in textured grandiose. A version of Talking Heads' 'Warning Sign' provides a melancholic contrast to the typically sickly approach that creeps up in the likes of 'Airplanes' and 'World News'. 'Sun Hands' is another fine example of excavations into darker unknowns, Ryan Hahn, Taylor Rice and Kelcey Ayer all corresponding vocally to the haunting thought that "if the morning never comes...", but it's the West Coast frenzied climax that separates 'Sun Hands' from the kids, giving it the status of the most enticing listen on the whole album.

It's when Local Natives drift aside from the norm that they really impress. And when displaying the crafty musicianship and expert songwriting that they do on 'Gorilla Manor', you know perfectly well that they're capable of evolving into something entirely more captivating and testing. But this is an album that reaches too many road-blocks, spanning for just under an hour (for an album that is simply a collection of streamlined, five minute songs, this is too much) and unable to muster up a unique personality. But be aware, very soon Local Natives will progress into an entity far more than just a sub-par version of their contemporaries. One consistent element in this scatterbrain? Potential.