Demodé Recordings

9

Hour of Green Evening

Goon

Music is a bit like a ladder. Helping us to ascend out of the muck of the world, to more heavenly heights, even if it’s just six feet (one person’s length) higher at a time. Los Angeles’s often-experimental indie band, Goon, have gone more ethereal on their latest album, Hour of Green Evening. On the cover of their album is a red ladder in a green field, and in their videos for the album, ladders make clever appearances. Like their music, it’s just a friendly suggestion.

It’s subtle imagery, and this album is beautiful in its subtlety, finding them stripping back some of their more frenetic Pixies’ punk sound to something more akin to Elliot Smith’s penchant for the perfect (and perfectly strange) melody line and ascending and descending guitar parts. From the first track, the synthesized impressionistic instrumental piece, “Pink and Orange,” you can see Kenny Becker and his band going in a bit of a new direction. And it pays off.

“In a past life you softly slept through waking hours / and in the boughs / beams of sound play a welcoming,” Kenny sings on the first real number, “Angelnumber 1210.” It is an introduction to one of the main themes of the album, the hours before sleeping and waking. “Night bloomed over the ivy in a row / there were you, singing along in the yellow,” he sings on the next number “Another Window,” where he sings as much in his beautiful falsetto as his already high captivating voice.

This album, sonically, lyrically, is a revelation. The synthesis of years’ of indie rock listening and training, to be sure, into something that is both smooth and palatable, and rocky and rough in just the right ratio. Experimental and familiar, all at once. This might be a top ten album of the year for me, honestly, realizing a sound indie-heads, like myself, only dream of, from first to eleventh track.

The album ends with its frequent focus of windows. “Climbing through the windowpane / pools in the grass and gentle haze.” This album is a gentle haze, much like we experience in the pockets of nature we experience, in city or suburb. There is the pain and comfort intrinsic in life throughout, but overall, this album is a needed balm. A look at the more beautiful hours of the day that heal from the brighter more stark realities of life and beating sun. If you haven’t heard this impressive outfit, it’s a good starting place, for a band who is always willing to push themselves to greater heights. They just keep climbing that ladder into the sky. Who knows what we’ll get next from them?