Though these three Canadians have only been Close Talker since 2012 (they were originally a quartet), Lens <\/i>is already their third album. Friends since childhood, Will Quiring, Matthew Kopperud, and Christopher Morien present a mature version of varied, cultured pop sounds that hit a career high here, relying on lush grooves and sprawling indie rock with a healthy addition of synth. <\/p>\n
\u201cAll Of Us\u201d starts the album off with ambient noise that breaks into a moody and richly textured song that’s as mysterious as the subject matter of taboo love. \u201cReptiles\u201d picks the pace up into more dance friendly territory with a memorable synth riff that transitions pleasantly into the atmospheric and dreamy-pop of \u201cBrothers,\u201d which is one of the best songs here. \u201cOkay Hollywood\u201d is a busy rocker that has its sights set on arena rock, though the band then quickly retreats to the subdued \u201cAfterthought.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second half of the album leads with the bold, powerful \u201cWaking Up,\u201d one of the most forceful songs on the listen. A couple of the most ominous tunes follow: \u201cHold Up, Rewind\u201d is groove-filled with late night contemplation, and \u201cSo What?\u201d is breathy, soulful, and ideal for just mulling things over. The disc ends with playful exploration, bringing in the spacey, lounge feel of \u201cFigure Eights\u201d as well as the closer \u201cSeasonal Friends,\u201d where a hazy, dreamy six minutes serves as a fitting conclusion.<\/p>\n
Lens <\/i>is a tough album to put a finger on. On one hand, it’s wonderfully layered with imaginative rhythms and strong, diverse musicianship. However, on the other hand, one can’t help but think that the band is still capable of doing better, as the songs are good \u2013 really good in some cases \u2013 but don\u2019t quite attain the greatness that will probably be present on their next album. File this one under thinking person’s rock, and prepare for their worldwide fame next time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":33203,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10022],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-45012","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-close-talker","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45012"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}