Phantom Planet, ‘Phantom Planet’
By user • Jan 15th, 2004 • Category: Album Reviews
When Phantom Planet released “The Guest” in 2002, it was the start of two years of cross-country touring.
A funny thing happened “driving down the 101.” The guys bought iPods and loaded as many songs as they could.
The band returned with a new love for electronic music, with Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann waiting at the helm without founding drummer Jason Schwartzman. The material the quintet wrote on the road was so different that bassist Sam Farrar told Ice magazine they should have reconsidered some songs and released something “more transitional.”
Gone are the simple harmonies and summertime melodies. Instead, the piano is replaced with a drum machine and the three guitars seem content to merely up the distortion, as opposed to interweaving intricate parts.
Front man Alex Greenwald follows suit with a change. No longer does the former Gap model appear at ease behind the mic. He has abandoned his effortless pop voice for a frantic, sometimes awkward, combination of growls and snarls, sounding like they come from the Julian Casablancas “Book of Vocal Manipulation.”
The self-titled record has quality moments. The groove-friendly bass lines on “1st Things 1st” create the band’s most intriguing song. The whimsical and nostalgic “After Hours” hints that the band has yet to entirely renounce its pop roots. The infectious “By the Bed” is a prime example of the band’s transition to an aggressive approach to songwriting.
Though this record represents the band’s explosive live act, it lacks the delicate vulnerability of prior recordings. The road-weary Phantom Planet is likely to alienate the primetime TV groupies in love with that song from “The O.C.”
Northern Star, Jan. 15, 2004
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