Should I be embarassed for liking this album? After all, that highly regarded magazine, "Entertainment Weekly", rated it as the second-worst album of 2004. What's more, the band's stage presence involves the wearing of colorful, new-age hippie clothes that look as though they could have been borrowed from some kind of religious cult. And, to top it off, they're always so darned happy. So much so that it's all a wee bit silly.
The Polyphonic Spree formed from the ashes of the 90s alt-rock group Tripping Daisy. Remaining members Tim DeLaughter, Mark Pirro, and Bryan Wakeland got together and decided the new band should go in a different direction. Under the leadership of DeLaughter, The Polyphonic Spree added numerous musicians and singers. In total, the band has about 25 members; though, the exact number seems to fluctuate up or down as various bandmembers come and go to and from the fold. Stylistically, the group self-describes themselves as a combination of rock, chamber-pop, psychedelia, and symphonic instruments. You've got some flute, trumpet, french horn, trombone, violin, harp, keyboards, guitar, bass, drums and more. What more could there possibly be? Oh, yeah. There's an entire choir, too. Though it appears that most everybody in the band contributes to the singing at least somewhat. Also, lead vocals are often handled by DeLaughter, who tends to sound like a slightly more melodic Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips.
Musically, "Together We're Heavy" feels quite uplifting. And, although The Polyphonic Spree has their own unique sound which is probably closest to the Flaming Lips out of all the music that I'm currently familiar with, a Flaming Lips album this most definitely is not! Also, I sometimes hear what I feel are homages to the trumpet sounds from the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper-era. Perhaps, too, are occassional hints of 1970s Chicago (the band). I'm not sure how to best describe them, though. So be sure to check out some audio samples on-line before purchasing.
Sonically, the surround mix on the DVD-Audio edition is quite beautiful. Encoded at 48 kHz / 24 bits, it sounds inviting; but isn't overly saturated in reverbs or whatnot that would create an artificial sense of warmth. Moreover, there is a fair amount of dynamic range considering it's a pop recording. Vocals have a pleasant openess to them and they don't seem confined to any one particular speaker. Surrounds sometimes have isolated, direct-radiating instrumentation which seems out of place until the rest of the music starts playing in the other channels. So I guess it's a tradeoff of sounding somewhat odd 5 percent of the time in order to have it sound wonderfully spatial 90 percent of the time. The remaing 5 percent? It's incredible!
I do have some complaints, though. First off, the bonus features include two separate videos for the song, "Light & Day / Reach For The Sun", which isn't technically part of this album. (It comes from the band's debut, "The Beginning Stages Of...".) I think it's great that the videos are included on this current package because it is easily their catchiest song. Unfortunately, the song is only available in stereo. Another complaint would be that the album can get a little 'samey' sounding after a while.
Still, it has ended up sounding less silly than I originally had thought, and can see myself returning to this disc for at least partial listens from time to time.
(P.S. - Robes can be ordered online via the band's website.)
