The Go Find - Everybody Knows It's Gonna Happen, Only Not TonightMMM
There's always a risk in projects that are "the brainchild" of one artist. Dieter Sermeus heads up the vocals and rounds up a lot of the credit for the music that comes out of Berlin-based The Go Find. It's not that every genius behind every music project (or anywhere in the collaborative/performance art world) is egotistical and controlling -although many good ones are- it's just that one thing I love about bands making music is how much of the process can be influenced from different minds.
Maybe that's where I struggle with the first half of the group's third album Everybody Knows It's Gonna Happen, Only Not Tonight. Until we work our way deep into the 7th track "Cherry Pie", Sermeus subjects us to his formula of easy, harmonic, atmospheric organs and guitars that wistfully glide onwards with a rather monotonous tempos. Don't get me wrong, he's got a good thing going here, but my impression is that sometimes when an artist has a sound or idea in mind and they're picking up credit for the project, their direction can be a little suffocating.
What "Cherry Pie" has, that the first half of the album doesn't, is it's own feel, allowing the band to build up, and rock a good pop-tune out of this sound. The acoustic and clean electric guitars get a solid nod here instead of being hidden under the twirling keyboards that harmonize in all sorts of ways on the albums first and title track, as well as on "It's on Automatic".
This album also struggles a little bit getting away from a sound that the California-based act Grandaddy popularized a few years back (check out "Now It's On" to see what I mean). This is why I end up being such a big fan of the end of the album. Sermeus' backing harmonies and fistful-o-keyboards are almost too much in the beginning of this record since we don't catch a break. "Running Mates" and "Heart of Gold" let those keys harmonize with each other, but give them some room spatially. In this day and age where music can just be constantly layered with all sorts of octaves, 5ths and 3rds, groups of this caliber sometimes get carried away with the harmonic possibilities.
So, call me old-fashioned (or boring because I've noted this before when I review records), but seasoned bands succeed when they don't just pay attention to harmonies and spatial arrangements. I'll start drooling and gushing out credit when a band can reflect on it's own sound and make some risky steps away from comfortable 4/4 rhythms and overwhelming harmonies that often hide some of the most idiosyncratic (and best) parts of a song. This is why "Just a Common Love", the second to last track on Everybody, is a real triumph, and why the almost U2ish guitar lines and loose snare on the closer "Heart of Gold" impress me the most.
Buy: Everybody Knows It's Gonna Happen, Only Not Tonight is out now on Morr Music.
Get a hard copy from Amazon
Snag it digital on Insound
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