LOCH LOMOND - Dresses

This new Loch Lomond LP arrives so quietly that nobody seems to have noticed. Yet the band, arguably the figurehead of the Portland scene, has just been through Italy to promote its third album, "Dresses", which is, not by chance, an elision of the previous EP "White Dresses", from which a couple of tracks are borrowed ("Kicking With Your Feet", "Your Eyes").

"Dresses" turns out to be the hardest record to decode in the career of Ritchie Young's band; having already shifted course from the more traditional "Paper The Walls" with the indie leanings of the still-successful "Little Me Will Start A Storm", an album marked by both melodic flair and sweeping "ambient" variations, "Dresses" is instead elusive, intangible, even amid its constant, almost orchestral (rather than chamber-like) openings ("The Wedding").

The inspiration, however, seems to have dropped noticeably, judging by the clamor of the poor "Virgin Mountain", a rather crude three-quarter-time progression from a compositional standpoint (there's little to it either, aside from the arrangement, in "Spray Painted Drums"). But the affected, theatrical expressiveness of tracks like "Black Dresses" and "The Way" doesn't do much to bring the record to life either.

Things are decidedly better on the raw, declamatory "Your Eyes", with the same fluttering inflections already appreciated on the band's previous work. But Loch Lomond are certainly expected to deliver much more than the decorative spirit wrapped around the substantial emptiness of the songs on "Dresses".

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10/03/2013