The Polyphonic Spree

You know things are bad in the world when The Polyphonic Spree sounds a pessimistic note. "'Cause one day soon," sings frontman Tim DeLaughter on "Overblow Your Nest," "the world comes down and says goodbye." It's the closest the Spree has come to acknowledging death, and frankly, it's about time. The Fragile Army begins and ends with the same kind of "Hey Jude" triumphalism the Dallas bliss-pop ensemble is famous for, but in between, shades of doubt creep into DeLaughter's lyrics, making the Spree's third album their richest and, ironically, most emotionally satisfying release to date.

It's also their hardest rocking, as DeLaughter and company wisely turn the orchestral touches down a notch and pump up the band's rhythmic core—bassist Mark Pirro, guitarist Ryan Fitzgerald, drummer Bryan Wakeland and the brilliant Mike Garson, a classically trained pianist who can hammer out block chords with the best of them. Anchored by this group, songs like the hard-charging "Get Up and Go" and even the more meditative title track achieve a bracing mix of emotional catharsis and rock 'n' roll bombast that hasn't been done this well since The Arcade Fire's Funeral.

But what really holds this Fragile Army together is the songwriting. DeLaughter and his co-writer/wife, Julie Doyle, have finally figured out how to use the Spree's orchestral flourishes to color great pop songs, instead of letting all that noise make every track feel like one long chorus. The result is that even the more wistful numbers, like "Younger Yesterday" and the startling, electronica-tinged "Light to Follow," feel more epic than thunderous Spree tracks of yore. For the first time, the Polyphonic Spree sound like they've earned all that sunshine, and it makes for one of the year's most exciting pop albums.

—Andy Hermann
06.15.07

On its third proper full-length and first for new label TVT, Texas supergroup -- in numbers, that is -- Polyphonic Spree, the only rock & roll band to boast a full size choir as part of its recording and touring incarnations, ditch the robes in favor of black military style outfits with red crosses stitched properly into place and displayed prominently. Director Mike Mills named the album. The PS's frontman and chief composer Tim DeLaughter scored his debut feature film Thumbsucker for the indie big screen (after the death of its original composer Elliott Smith). Musically, The Fragile Army is both a return to tried and true methods and simultaneously, a departure. The enormous sound of the PS, with its tightly structured compositions by DeLaughter and Julie Doyle hasn't changed that much. One can hear elements of every big rock production band from the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev to David Bowie in its sonic mix. And PS's trademark sunshine-drenched pop symphonica hasn't disappeared, or even taken a hiatus. It's here. What's new is a more textured melancholy in the darker, or at least sadder-themed songs that appeared first on the group's Wait EP earlier in 2007. There is equal weight given to both.

A fine example is on the title track (also known as "Section 24" in the band's numerically ordered catalog). Beginning with a mournful solo piano and DeLaughter's opening words: "Oh how we miss/They're so far gone/Will they move when the valley explodes/We'll make no mistakes, if they move too late/Well we wish that they would have called you home/Hold the line/Please be right/You left them on the floor/Hold the line call off the strike/We left them on the floor/Oh no, oh no...." It would be an elegy, except that then the brass section kicks in halfway through the verse, the choir enters in response, and we can hear Bowie on Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs, finding a requiem for that which has passed and the regret involved in not taking the opportunity to reach out when everything was still possible. Typewriter sounds, synths, fat horns, and the swirling choir explode into the middle of this mournful pop gem: "It's time for you to lose your excitement..." In exactly four minutes the song moves from slow ballad to blown-out glam vaudeville suite. It opens onto "We Crawl," with an Herb Alpert-styled opening horn line, painted by piano, guitars, and popping snare drums as DeLaughter sings: "Well everybody tries, to keep themselves alive/You were younger yesterday/And feelin' not so gray..." the piano answers, chords wind around the melody, and DeLaughter answers it: "Well everybody cries/I think I'm beginning to find/I was younger yesterday/And I'm feelin' not so gray/We're layin down in bed/The days go by in my head/Yeah, I'll fake it if I can't sleep/And together we can get some relief..." before the choir and the band slide right in stride "And now you know you're beautiful/You've always wondered/Now you know/Everything's alright...Together We're alright." As the piano finds itself in the heart of the melody, the tune changes and becomes truly plural. But the place, it seems, "we're alright," is in our brokenness, doubt, and feelings of inadequacy, and flaws. Together we make a whole. As the tune becomes a majestically wrought pomp and circumstance march by a rag-tag, shoeless group of survivors, it's obvious this is the only kind of optimism possible because it's not rooted in post-hippie idealism, but in everyday life and its all-but-impossible sense of failure.

The Fragile Army succeeds in large part because of the groundedness of its subject matter. Its production is truly elegant thanks to John Congleton and mixing engineer Jay Ruston. The melodies are far more varied than on previous outings, and the sense of dynamics and balance of tension in these songs -- and the arrangements that accompany them -- are the most sophisticated this group has ever pulled off. On The Fragile Army PS seem more like a group and n