When playing music started to feel routine to
Beak> after the countless shows they performed in support of
Beak 4 (aka
>>>>) something had to change. Though their third album's feints toward accessibility landed closer to pop's uncanny valley than the top of the charts,
Geoff Barrow,
Billy Fuller, and
Will Young return to their roots on
Beak 4 and, fittingly, deliver some of their most subterranean-sounding music. "Strawberry Line" begins the album with an invocation of the trio's powers that builds from an organ-driven dirge into a starscape of arpeggiated synths; that it's dedicated to the band's late dog Alfie (who surrounds
Beak> with a heart-shaped laser beam on the album cover) makes its transformation that much more moving. On the songs that follow, all of the group's modes are on display: Their classic motoric -- which has become as synonymous with
Beak> as it is with forebears like
Can -- speeds between klaxon synths on "The Seal." Underpinned by clanking and strafing rhythms that showcase the attention to percussion that has marked
Barrow's projects since
Portishead, "Secrets" is a hypnotic example of their mechanical melancholy. On "Hungry We Are," a decrepit folk-prog ballad,
Beak> reaffirm that they're bleakest when they're softest. No matter which direction they take on
Beak 4 , they remain brilliant at suggesting entropy without letting the music actually fall apart. In the hands of a less skilled band, the way "Bloody Miles"' mournfully fluttering keyboards give way to downtrodden funk could be disjointed instead of transporting. Similarly, "Denim"'s bleary tones and off-kilter shuffle blur the boundaries between arch and poignant in a manner few other artists would attempt. A few traces of
Beak 3 's DNA remain on "Ah Yeh," a song that could be a rawer sequel to "Brean Down," but the spontaneity
Beak> show here -- and on the rest of
Beak 4 -- reflects how they created this music without any expectations. They embrace unpredictability fully on the outlandish grunge-psych-electro-meltdown "Windmill Hill" and on "Cellophane," which sends the album off with a
Stooges-like rock inferno. While it's unlikely that
Beak> could or would become a truly "accessible" band, it's also unmistakable how revitalized they sound as they revel in
Beak 4 's rough edges and surprises. ~ Heather Phares
