The Sour Notes, Last Looks

Talk about a transformation. Back when I reviewed The Sour Notes’ Hot Pink Flares 7″, I noted that the band I was listening to was a far cry from the band I’d heard the first time I saw the Notes live, not even a full year before. They’d shifted directions, throwing the keys to the background, ditching (mostly) the melancholy of 2010’s It’s Not Gonna Be Pretty, and tearing their way through some truly cool power-pop tunes; it was a promising hint of what was to come.

Looking back, however, I feel like I really had no clue where the band was headed, none at all. Last Looks fulfills that promise, then leaves it in the dust — it simply is a flat-out perfect set of sweet, ultra-melodic, shiny-clean power-pop songs, with all the rough edges sanded smooth and a damn near flawless sense of what pieces should go where. The latter part’s particularly crucial here, by the way, considering that each track here is like its own little mini-symphony, with different movements, crescendoes, and denouements.

The closest comparison I can come up with, really, is to Canadian pop supergroup The New Pornographers (particularly back in the Mass Romantic era). The Sour Notes come close to channeling the Vancouver band’s furious, wide-smiling power-pop aesthetic, and like the Canadians, they build songs that are so densely layered you have to listen multiple times just to be able to pick out all the various moving parts; see “Big Dreams,” which is laid-back and gorgeous but busy as all hell, where I didn’t even catch the horns or “Wave of Mutilation”-esque riffs lurking down beneath the main melody.

“Hot Pink Flares” itself is a good example of how the band works, starting off with a crunchy guitar riff and then shifting sideways to incorporate some nicely understated strings, keys, and dueling male/female vocals…and that’s before it builds steadily to an awesome, ramshackle crescendo and then collapses near-breathlessly into delicate, girl-group pop with Wild Moccasins-esque vocals. If anything, the track works even better here than on the original 7″; here it feels like it fits into the context of the album as a whole, and that’s no bad thing.

Adding to that New Pornographers comparison is guitarist/singer/songwriter Jared Boulanger’s effortless command of a hooky melody, which lets him come up with riffs and lines that are impossible to ignore, practically demanding you listen. “The Moment You Feel It” is the best example here, a slice of anthemic, Caribbean-tinged pop that rides a great guitar line and pulls you along with it, making you want to listen again as soon as it’s done.

Not everything works as well, of course — the fragile, piano-heavy (at first, anyway) “As Crude As Watercolor” doesn’t quite do it for me, despite a hint of Trembling Blue Stars-esque minimal, romantic electro-pop. Same for the instrumental “More Colour,” which sounds retro to me, coming off like Harry Nilsson. But hey, that’s still not a bad place to be.

All in all, Last Looks is one of those great, great indie-pop albums that sounds more like a masterpiece every time you listen, unfolding a new bit of sound each time. Make your way up to the windows and peek on in for yourself.

(Feature photo by Francisco Marin.)