Broken Bells

Back in the day, before the Internet knew everything as it happened and watered the universe down, collaboration records were truly exciting things. Events, even. You’d hear rumors and maybe see a story in a magazine or hear a song or two on a 7” or your local college radio station, but not until the record finally hit the shelf did we really know what we were getting. And it was fun that way. Nowadays, though, things are different. We’ve all known about this James Mercer (This Shins) and Brian Burton (Danger Mouse) – known together as Broken Bells – collaborative record for ages. We’ve known about it so long that most of us have already gone from excited to bored to hopeful to, well, kinda over it – all before the record hit shelves. But now the record is here, and I’d be lying if I said that – despite doing all I could to read up on Internet speculation – it’s not pretty much exactly what I thought it’d be. 

And, in this case, that’s an okay thing. It’s a good thing because Mercer’s writing and singing is damn good, at least as far as indie pop is concerned. It’s a good thing because Burton knows how to make beat-heavy pop songs fly. Sure, he’s as predictable – and reliable – as any machine as far as his output goes, but, when dealing with pop music, that’s not exactly a bad thing. Together Mercer and Burton make cleanly produced space-pop that is endlessly melodic and never too experimental. If you’ve heard Burton’s production work on Beck’s Modern Guilt and know Mercer’s work with The Shins, then, well, you can probably imagine what this record sounds like. Imagine the Gorillaz (who Burton has done extensive production work for) if they were more melancholy, melodic and, well, indie.

Claiming to have first considered collaborating as early as 2004, Burton and Mercer started hitting the studio together following Burton’s 2009 collaborative album with Sparklehorse, Dark Night of the Soul, which featured Mercer on one track. Unlike Burton’s early production work, these songs lack the dusty, sampled vibe his early sound was built on, at times feeling like computer creation. Mercer doesn’t even attempt to leave his comfort zone, seemingly handing guitar tracks and vocals over to Burton, who then builds varied backdrops that pull from a variety of influences. “Citizen” stands out, stacked with keyboards and flourishes, almost bringing to mind Grandaddy’s sometimes brand of prog-pop. This song, I’d guess, is where all the Brian Eno comparisons are coming from.

Opener “The High Road” starts out cartoon-y before pretty much becoming a super produced Shins outtake. Never a bad thing when the result is this good. “The Ghost Inside” will instantly remind of Burton’s Gnarls Barkley collaborations with Cee-Lo, Mercer even singing in a falsetto similar to Cee-Lo’s. To these ears, it’s one of the album’s lesser cuts, though I could easily see it being a solid crossover single. “Mongrel Heart” feels like it belongs over the opening credits of a new era Bond film while “Vaporize” gives off a Shins-with-beats vibe, alone warranting purchase for any Shins fan. The trippy “Your Head is on Fire” is another big winner, melodically perfect and deeply arranged and produced.

In short, these are dreamy pop tunes that demand no more than three listens to love. These 10 songs are often beat-heavy at times and maybe a little too clean for comfort, but, when all is said and done, this is a perfectly fine record – better than I expected, for sure. Not a new classic or something to celebrate in any major way, but a worthy entry into the wide open Rock Collab Hall of Fame.   8/10

Written by G. William Locke