It’s easy to see why Fields started a bidding war between major labels; they make accessible and beautiful guitar music of an enormous size. You don’t get a much bigger sound than this, except for perhaps at their live shows. Not quite as grandiose as Sigur Ros but far more sensational than say, Broken Social Scene, they carve canyons with their walls of guitars but it’s always a pretty contained affair, with those dark tones with an optimistic streak shining through and the washed out vocals and the layers – the layers! So dense.
But they’re good at what they set out for. They don’t take too many risks but then, when your focus and niche is this clear, why would you? It’s a safe album of the sometimes-boring five-minute indie rock sort of song, plenty of minor notes matched with dense vocal major harmonies. “Skulls and Flesh and More’ has the upbeat drums and the hazy vocals drifting across the chorus, it rolls along nicely. Next up “If You Fail We All Fail’ stagnates with waily Evanescence-esque vocals and stilted drums. Ahh! Crescendos! Excuse my cynicism, it’s just that the melodrama and the predictability and sheer post-rock hugeness of Everything Last Winter can grate at times. It is, though, diverse enough to herald a few gems and it’s a solid listen throughout. It just depends how clean cut you like it. It’ll be a terrific soundtrack to your jaunt up some snowcapped mountains in your new sporty faux-4×4. But even if this belongs firmly in the iTunes marketable style of indie-rock, their key concern is beauty and optimism. It’s hard to manage this without being too “uplifting’ or fist pumpingly Bono-esque; Fields rub off the wrong way in this sense for most of this album, but at times they successfully take it from the stadium to the open fields, sprawling and green.
Richard MacFarlane
