Team Me, To The Treetops Album Review
This, the debut album from Norwegian eclectic multi-instrumentalist collective, kicks off with 'Riding My Bicycle (From Ragnvaldsbekken To Sorkedalen) which opens with a melody dualled between the glimmering precision of piano and a nasal hummed vocal part. This melody or variations then underpin the vocal melody which eventually enters over a cacophonous musical blend something akin to Mew, certainly regarding Team Me's experimental feel. It's a multi-instrumental blend with clarinet and strings oozing around amongst synths, drums and strong bass. From its' quite angular openings, the track builds into a fuller two part vocal chorus. Chopping between feels but all the time maintaining the continuity of a single track, Team Me's sound is immediately fresh and interesting, and in an opening track pushing seven minutes long they are not afraid to give themselves space in which to explore.
The opening of 'Show Me' has a cool indie pulse to it, proving that the track wouldn't be out of place on the dance floor. The catchy evolving vocal melodies blend Mew with Guillemots as they echo higher above Team Me's eclectic musical blend, gradually building to a driving chorus flanked by strings and a chorus of vocal parts. Team Me's electro-infused, high-pitched vocal ridden sound owes a great debt to Patrick Wold, the subject of 'Patrick Wolf & Daniel Johns'; this blast of a track however, under three minutes long, also nods to a kind of pop punk simplicity. 'Weathervanes and Chemicals' then opens in string laden beauty soaring over rumbling tom-heavy drum parts. As the track builds into its chorus the vocals soar clear above the blend imitating the beauty of its string-led opening with melodies so lush they bring to mind a Sigur Ros like tranquillity and perfection over sensitive arrangements and gently sparkling glockenspiel. Offering something of a more stripped down contrast, with a delicately picked acoustic guitar opening, 'Fool' offers us a peek at how Team Me's tracks begin life as beautiful gentle songwriting that evolves through the input of the collective of musicians into much fuller sounding tracks that really build to ooze through the soundwaves akin to big Arcade Fire-like choruses. From its building, oozing glory, 'Fool' then drops back to a more careful anxious sound with picked acoustic guitar intertwined with the harmonies of the string arrangement amongst tumbling toms and strange electronic sounds.
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