Right from the opener and first single, ‘Melody Day’, it is clear that Caribou’s (formerly Manitoba) latest album is going to be a quite an experience – a uptempo clutter of drums, multitracked harmonising building to an ecstatic choral mix, bubbling flutes, chiming guitars, even a false ending. It is almost as if Caribou steps back a decade with each album and here on Andorra, Dan Snaith is channeling vintage 60s pop, and feeding his band of merry pranksters gallons of psychedelic substances. In amongst the ensuing sonic chaos – guitars, bells, horns, whistles, keyboards, drumkits, flutes, sitars – there are worldly songs about love and loss recalling an (imagined) ‘simpler age’. Don’t read that as retro-gazing though, Andorra bubbles over with production details, sonic tricks, and the album concludes on an overtly electronic edge – there is a hint of the 60s leaking into the 70s at the close. This time, too, the processed multi-tracking of Snaith’s voice lends it a strength that has been buried or at least blurred on previous albums. Snaith has said that he wanted to make songs that captured the emotional aura of bittersweet 60s pop bands like The Zombies and on songs like ‘She’s The One’, ‘Melody Day’ and ‘Eli’, he especially makes good on his mission.
Absolutely joyous.
Sebastian Chan
