Back when I was a kid -- pre-teen, anyway -- my parents enjoyed going for a Sunday drive, and my sister and I were obliged to accompany them. As if stopping at such scintillating haunts as garden centers and furniture shops wasn't torture enough, my folks enjoyed listening to the radio, which they kept tuned to the local "mellow" station. In the late seventies and early eighties, so-called "lite rock" hadn't quite evolved, so we were treated to an endless string of languid third-string folk-pop tunes that dulled our senses as easily as an overdose of Ny-quil.
There's no doubt that The Ladybug Transistor make music that bears at least a passing resemblance to the syrupy folk-pop that haunted my weekends. So why do I find Argyle Heir so appealing? Obviously, the musicians who made my Sundays so hellish were tritely earnest, humorless, facial-hair-intensive peaceniks who thoroughly deserved their downhill slide into obscurity; Ladybug Transistor, on the other hand, understand how to rock, even if they don't ever come right out and do it (the members have other bands for that sort of thing). But despite orchestral pop flourishes and the occasional spot of country twang, there's a sedate, almost pastoral mellowness to Argyle Heir that, against all odds, makes me listen to it again and again.
Check out "Echoes". It's as folky as can be, isn't it? If you have an ounce of punk rock in your body, this song should make you want to break things and hurt people...but there's something insidiously catchy about the way the violin plays against the twangy guitar during the chorus, and the vocals are full, rich and satisfyingly understandable, the better to sing along with. Sure, you might find yourself singing lyrics from "Turn, Turn, Turn" instead, as they fit quite easily, but sing you will. "Perfect for Shattering" works the same way; at first you'll be impressed by the flute/horn/violin action, then you'll sway to the chorus and shake your corduroyed ass to the backbeat. Witness also the thick, woolly haze and enveloping organ burble of "Going Up North (Icicles)", which faithfully recreates the experience of being on pain-killing medication, only without all the side-effects and addictive potential (Matthew Perry, listen up). For something a little more robust, check out "Words Hang In the Air", a beautiful piece of fifties-style pop with strings, bells and Spanish-style horns and guitar accents.
The Ladybug Transistor clearly wanted to remind everyone of their Elephant 6 Collective affiliation. One result is "Caton Gardens" -- which, with lyrics like "I was dead for twenty years before you even noticed...", sports a core of eccentric weirdness beneath its woozy exterior.
The danger that Ladybug Transistor faces in working within this retro-country-folk-pop oeuvre -- above and beyond the fact that most people are conditioned not to listen to it -- is that it's difficult to rise above the level of pastiche. Yes, the songs are authentically retro, but at times the band's technique is so overt that the songs seem to scream "Hey, look what we're doing! We're adding Beach Boys-style pop flourishes to folk songs! Isn't this cool?" Push the authenticity too hard and you have a record that sinks beneath the weight of its own blandness; over-emphasize the novelty instrument pairings and you have the musical equivalent of a Disneyland attraction, a record that's as smarmily ersatz as a Wild West town where the cowboys smile cheerily as they sell you a five-dollar bottle of Coca-Cola.
Argyle Heir dodges this bullet more often than not. While it lacks a show-stopping single on a par with "Oceans in the Hall" from 1999's The Albemarle Sound, and while a few songs -- most notably "In a Certain Place" -- sound like rejected They Might Be Giants tunes, it achieves just the right mixture of mellow folkiness and pop experimentation. It's not a party record by any stretch of the imagination, but it's well-suited to long, relaxed, obligation-free summer afternoons -- perfect, in other words, for Sunday drives...even if you take them on Wednesday.
