The Avalanches - We Will Always Love You Review

SEARCHING FOR REPRIEVE AMONGST THE STARS

Wildflower was an instant classic, a term I do not use lightly. Since then it's only grown with age, holding a special place in my heart as it recently cracked my top ten albums of all-time. Nothing The Avalanches could've done next would've topped it, and I was perfectly okay accepting that fact. But still, We Will Always Love You's clear separation from Plunderphonics, revealed single after unfulfilling single, left me gutted. It's a genre I adore, and one that - due to its very rapacious nature - is increasingly difficult to come by. 'We Will Always Love You' with Blood Orange, 'Running Red Lights' with Rivers Cuomo? These first impressions, with their garish Soul, plebeian content, and dire slants, felt nothing like The Avalanches. But perhaps that decision to stray from typecast - against my best wishes and biases - will prove crucial to the duo's far-flung longevity. We Will Always Love You positions The Avalanches as the Aussie Gorillaz, outpacing Damon Albarn's latest gaffe Song Machine with a wide array of trendy (and non-trendy; Johnny Marr anyone?) artists who, when combined, can present exciting partnerships and dichotomies. With a cohesive, beautiful concept paring down bold excursions under the guise of a spacefaring quest for love, this new breath of air isn't as ineffable as their previous works, but the mystifying concoction still arouses sonic bliss.

Like Since I Left You and Wildflower, the one thing that hasn't changed is The Avalanches' affinity towards excursion. It's baked into the essence of their concepts, be it their debut's lost at sea search or Wildfower's road trip to end all road trips. Apart from singular tracks which soar with clarity in collaboration, WWALY's best aspect is the justification for which it exists. Taking inspiration from Ann Druyan and her Voyager Golden Record project, The Avalanches set their sights on the stars. In search of what? Love is obvious, but meaning, purpose, a voice, they resonate too. Though samples are few and far-between, WWALY acts as a memorandum to all those departed artists, living amongst the stars, who they've revived through their music, if only temporarily so. It's a marvelous message, executed exquisitely with The Avalanches' knack for considerate pacing, potent auroras, and sage life lessons. Without the concept in tow, those aforementioned singles fell to the riffraff. But now, each and every song has premeditated design, pieced within the larger puzzle that, when whole, reflects a boundless universe awaiting discovery.

That being said, though every song adheres to such an aesthetic - a marvelous feat given the robust feature list - inconsistency plagues a record that demands constancy. Jumping into the hits, be it 'We Go On,' 'Music Makes Me High,' or 'Always Black,' just feels wrong when the conjoining efforts are borderline necessary to enjoy the individual experience. Apart from the interludes failing to muster much allure, as Wildflower's did ('Going Home,' 'Zap!,' 'Park Music'), lengthy endeavors that require patience fail to reach their maximum potential. 'Reflecting Light' is a total bore, 'Take Care In Your Dreaming' struggles to find relevance (sucks to admit, rapping doesn't fit the LP's tone), and 'Born To Lose,' while a lovely jaunt down The Avalanches' typical Alternative Dance, doesn't elaborate in ways a five-minute song should. A couple tedious strays find their way into the tracklist as well, like 'Song For Barbara Payton,' 'Until Daylight Comes,' and 'Music Is The Light,' the last a particular waste of a treasured Cornelius feature.

Thankfully the pros outweigh the cons. Out of the six best songs, only one ('Music Makes Me High') was a lead single, offering plenty of excitement within the crevices. 'Divine Chord' is the first of which, lavishing around giddy psychedelics akin to Mercury Rev, while the party really gets going with the two song tandem 'Oh The Sunn!' and 'We Go On.' The energy is boundless, eliciting the best aspects of Disco, with licentious choral harmonizing and forthright rhythms. 'We Go On' is a masterpiece of liberation, incorporating beaming background vocals and inspired performances from Cola Boyy and Mick Jones. Between 'We Go On' and the next best tandem - 'Gold Sky' into 'Always Black' - it's tough to pinpoint a favorite. Here, Kurt Vile manifests David Berman a la 'Saturday Night Inside Out,' using tender Spoken Word to intercept addicting chants over sublime acoustics. I'm just now realizing how impactful The Avalanches' cornucopia of vocalists were to WWALY, seeing as to how my favorite songs all incorporate phonic bliss. 'Always Black' is a more intimate affair though, as Pink Siifu solemnly pens with the help of Azimuth, finding his emotional fragility over a messy, cascaded piano; arguably the prettiest instrumental on the whole album.

These moments, along with the album's overall pacing, give meaning to We Will Always Love You. The personal stories, swooning orchestral strings, journey to destinations unknown. Though they've set aside Plunderphonics - a genre they almost single-handedly defined - The Avalanches still mange to find themselves uncontested and wholly original. Without the benefit of sampling at their side, that's perhaps an even more impressive feat. It'll never eclipse the special place Since I Left You and Wildflower have in my heart, but I can't help but feel as if this album might fill someone else's.