Alt-J (or ∆)’s 2012 debut album An Awesome Wave drew its name from the novel “American Psycho” by Bret Easton Ellis, when its central character is able to find a table at an otherwise bustling, trendy restaurant: “Relief that is almost tidal in scope washes over me in an awesome wave,” he said.
If Wave was Patrick Bateman’s relief, then This is All Yours is sort of like another scene later in the novel. Bateman and a friend go into a nightclub restroom stall when they’re about to pack their noses with cocaine, only to realize they’ve been duped because the dealer sold them Sweet’N Low.
On the outside, Yours is very well produced. It starts with “Intro,” a brick-layered track with eerie, falsetto “la la la la” pointillism, Hindustani melodies, mechanical vocals and heavy, stomping drums. The instrumental layering on “Every Other Freckle” and the lyrical imagery “I’m gonna bed into you like a cat beds into a beanbag / Turn you inside out and lick you like a crisp packet” is a great example of what alt-J is capable of at its strongest.
This record is marginally less fun to listen to than Wave, and it lacks a sense of togetherness and vitality. It’s a scattered bunch of moments, from the unexpected minute-long flute interlude in the middle “Garden of England,” to the outright silly use of a Yamaha keyboard’s DJ setting “The Gospel of John Hurt”. Plenty of moments are uncharacteristic – it would have been a laughable prediction that the new alt-J album would sample Miley Cyrus “Hunger of the Pine” or include the lyric “O-M-G / Gee whiz, girl, you’re the one for me.” “Left Hand Free.”
In an interview with the Guardian, guitarist and lead vocalist Joe Newman said that he doesn’t want the band “to appear normcore,” or unremarkably standard. They explain that the song “Left Hand Free,” was written facetiously. It’s based on a “joke riff” with a routine structure and deliberately “clichéd” rhythm without personality. The band’s tone in the interview sounds like its defending a perfunctory break-up poem written in high school. Adding to the forced superficiality, the music video resembles stock footage for a light beer commercial.
The lyrics “Well your left hand’s free / And your right’s in a grip / With another left hand / Watch his right hand slip / Towards his gun, oh no” concern a slow-burning duel and holster-reach at the end of a spaghetti western film, although YouTube comments will insist that it’s clearly about masturbation.
The predicament in play here is that “Left Hand Free” doesn’t sound like any other alt-J song (which is to say, it’s immediately accessible), yet it’s one of the whole record’s few exceptional tracks. It sounds like a pastiche of Doolittle-era Pixies or a bonus track on Beck’s Guero.
It’s not easy to forecast what a band will do next, or why, especially if it’s named after a keyboard shortcut that indicates change. It’s certainly not normcore, but it is worth some attention.
Follow Emerson Malone on Twitter @allmalone