Lost In The Trees - A Church That Fits Our Needs

An album about the artist's mother's suicide. Perfect sunny afternoon music. It's chamber pop, which is fancy talk for "let's put more sounds in there". And more often than not, I was put off by all the noise. There's a pretty pop song underneath all of this. It doesn't have that dynamic skyrocketing that a Rufus Wainwright would have. It's all very lilty. Sufjan Stevens is an apt comparison.

Ari Picker's voice is soft, but still well-spoken and on target. One of my other annoyances is the background vocals. They often sing without words, as orchestration, when I think the album would benefit more from stripping itself down a notch. I would start with these angelic bitches. "The Dead Bird Is Beautiful" and its soft-to-loud buildup is a good example of the stripdown vs. vocal exhaustion.

In the end, I was simply too distracted by the music; which at its core is typical indie folk. But it overextends itself in extra noise. So his songwriting intent of what may have been a thoughtful memorial is lost on me. (2.5 of 5 stars)