I saw Stereolab not so long ago at the Georgia Theatre and came away impressed and surprised. My experience with the band doesn’t go back decades despite its lengthy history, and my impressions of them filtered through the choices Spotify made for me more than anything else. It created an undeniable sound, but it took seeing the band live to realize its sound was discovered through a pure understanding of its musical talent. Stereolab sounds like it does because it has mastered how to play music — the many sounds coming off the stage that night were evidence of this mastery.
It reminded me of Picasso: he is renowned for co-founding Cubism, but he could paint you anything because he was that skilled.
This came to me while listening to After The Rain, Strange Seeds from London quartet The Leaf Library, a prolific band making music for two decades. It’s the band’s first studio album in six years, a collection of indie pop songs that sound a bit like a rainy day in England. In several spots, it also sounds a lot like Stereolab, which is not a bad thing, per se. But where Stereolab excels when it’s not trying to be itself, The Leaf Library struggles when it doesn’t sound like Stereolab because I don’t know who The Leaf Library is trying to be.
After the Rain opens in fine form, “Colour Chant” finds a simple yet effective groove, paced along by singer Kate Gibson’s calming lyrics. It is probably longer than it needs to be, saved by “Still & Moving,” the album’s best track and the most Stereolab-like. The song takes a cue from its title, racing by with Gibson’s able singing, Irina Shtreis’ smart keyboards and the churning guitar of Mike Cranny. A fun and lively tune that, if followed, would define this album as a skilled go-getter.
But “The Reader’s Lamp” slows the tempo down way too much, and suddenly we’re in the mud again. This shares an ethos with Yo La Tengo, except Yo La would end the song three minutes earlier.
The album is up-and-down from there, with “Carry A River In Your Mouth” excelling with a sumptuous use of strings, “Catch Up, Isobel” exploring Stereolab once again to great success, and “A Ship in the Sky,” which gave me very strong vibes reminiscent of the R.E.M. song Low from Out of Time. The culmination of these influences — Yo La Tengo, Stereolab, and R.E.M. — squares the album in the early 1990s realm that existed outside the grunge explosion. It’s a good callback to the time, though maybe a little too on the nose.
It’s a nice effort from The Leaf Library; they have a level of skill that has culminated over two decades together. But there’s a dated feel to After the Rain, reminiscent of other sounds without building a sound of its own.
