plants and animals - parc avenue

I get it: This band is talented. They write layered music with an epic feel. They craft well-built songs that grow and twist in ways you’d never expect, like “Faerie Dance,” an inventive tune that’s dark and beautiful but, at the end, switches to a soft seventies-radio rock vibe. This would be fine if not for the fact that half the album relies on this same hook. Plants and Animals have the languid, rolling, Steely Dan songwriting down, but the problem is that it’s safe and ultimately boring. “Faerie Dance” is their best song because it’s not safe, because it takes chances, because it sounds like alt-folk as played by Jane’s Addiction. The rest of the album fares even worse, meandering off into the ether. Plants and Animals has been described as math-rock, which, as near as I can tell, translates loosely to “Phish-like,” and Phish’s influence does seem to show here and there. P&A are talented, but I only occasionally catch glimpses of it. As they sing on the opening track: “It takes a good friend / To say you’ve got your head up your ass.” Well…

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