The second song on the self-titled release by Finland’s Delay Trees contains a typo, I’m pretty sure of it. It’s listed as “Cassette 2012,” but I’m convinced a zero should be where the one resides, and I base this belief on purely historical reasons. There’s no way a song this derivative could evoke the future, even while cleverly paired with a term so ingrained in the past. No, it must be 2002, cause that’s where I heard this all before.
I’m not one to go after bands for sounding like other bands — hell, everyone in some way mimics the many bands before them — but to become pertinent there has to be a moment of separation. Listen after listen of Delay Trees elicited a wealth of influences (Athlete, Coldplay, Mighty Lemon Drops, Ocean Blue), but never once did I stop to think about the band Delay Trees. The song “Light Pollution” proved the Final Straw (as in Snow Patrol’s 2003 album) on any sense of originality.
So I hated it, right? Not so fast. For as copycat as Delay Trees is, the band is at least aping the best elements of good bands. The album-opening “Gold” sets a soothing atmospheric mood, with lead singer Rami Vierula angling his voice to meet the constant rise of the dissonance around him. The aforementioned “Cassette 2012” is as peppy and playful as it is predictable, while “Tarantula/Holding Out” is the closest Delay Trees comes to breaking out, only to spend the song’s last two minutes bowing at the Chris Martin alter.
And this ails the band — when the songs tarry, they become parody. Had “Tarantula/Holding Out” ended at three in a half minutes instead of five and a half, there would be no time for overt comparisons. “In February” suffers the same fate, as it merges from a nice little pop song into an unremarkable clutter of strings, synths and vocal echoes. Is that the best you can do?
The album ending “4:45 AM,” which I suppose is meant to put the listener to sleep, approaches seven minutes of elevator music. When Vierula sings “But my dearest don’t you change/ Just stay here with me waiting” my immediate thought was to yell “Run” (which also happens to be the name of a great Snow Patrol song).
Change is good. Life is too short for recycled songs.
