11:11 - Pinegrove: Review
Pinegrove
are a New Jersey indie rock and who have spent the last decade crafting a unique and extremely recognizable blend of lo-fi indie rock, emo and folk that has significantly divided listeners. The band has a dedicated fanbase but also sports plenty of haters citing how similar all of their songs sound and the occasionally shortcomings of their lyrics.
Review By Lav:
While I've never been crazy about Pinegrove I'm also far from a hater. They have a greatest hits album worth of spectacular songs which I've reflected in my year end lists over the past five years. As much as I hate to play into stereotypes however, listening to the band for an entire album has never been something I'm a huge fan of. With so much instrumentally familiarity you really have to be invested in two things, the progression of each song and the lyrical vision. If both or even one of those is executed well they can create very compelling songs, but much like all of their records that isn't always the case on 11:11.
Going into this record I had slightly higher expectations than previous times I've reviewed their work mostly due to the four singles dropped in the lead up averaging out to a pretty good set. Alaska was the second single, the highlight of the bunch and still one of my favorite songs on the record. It's a short song with one catchy refrain after another and a bouncy instrumental that is just relentless throughout. It's really Pinegrove at their most fun and I'm a big fan. Respirate came out a few weeks ago and I actually like it quite a bit. It feels like the band turning back the clock to their debut with wordier refrains and a surprisingly bombastic chorus. It even has what I think is an organ backing worked into the instrumentation and it all just sounds great when everything comes together.
I didn't hate the other two singles but I certainly didn't like them as much. Habitat came out just this week and serves as the opening track, I think it's also the longest song of the bands career at nearly 7 minutes. I do like the emotional and sonic shifts the track takes as it follows a very loose and metaphor heavy sort of narrative throughout. The real challenge to a track like this is keeping it interesting throughout which the longwinded outro definitely has trouble doing. Orange was the lead single and I actually reacted kind of negatively to it mostly because the opening two verses are just so incredibly boring. I get that it's setting up for an eruption of electric guitar on the songs emotional release of a hook but I do wonder if everything had to be SO dry and patient on the way. It's grown on me a bit because the second half of the track is much livelier and somewhat worth seeing the song through.
Like the singles the album tracks here are a mixed bag but I will say that this is one of the better collections of tunes I've ever heard from the band. Iodine has some incredibly catchy refrains and a sullen guitar lead that pairs perfectly with the wailing hook to make a great moment. The title also comes from a particularly vivid line about dropping iodine from you eyes which goes about as hard as a depiction of eye drops possibly could. Flora comes after a very emotionally heavy first half and feel like a light hearted respite from everything. The song described an admittedly pleasant sounding walk through nature and sports one of the brightest and most upbeat instrumentals on the entire record. I've actually grown to like it quite a bit and it comes up at the perfect moment on the album.
The second half is a bit more inconsistent and it's where most of my least favorite songs come up but that doesn't mean there aren't bright spots. So What sees the return of one of the most divisive elements of the band that being extremely literal lyrical content. While it definitely sounds out of place from the song itself I see it as being almost kind of charming at this point and the band clearly knows what they're doing. The real saving grace for the song is that it does a great job setting up for a great hook that drive home the theme of moving on in a really memorable and direct way.
Cyclone is a short but exciting track with some of the more intense vocals on the record. The vocals are another issue a lot of people have with Pinegrove and I can definitely see it being a problem here. I don't find too many of the refrains to be obnoxiously oversung but there are certainly some that are and that tends to hang over the entire track. Let is a clear dramatic shift heading into the second half of the album so much so that it adopts the closing lyrics from the previous track but in a much sadder way. It's an okay some recounting all the ways Evan has let down someone in his life but I don't think it has many particularly memorable refrains. The one thing it does do is deliver a very beautiful sound capable of holding up to the anguished sentiment.
The worst song on the record is probably Swimming, the records generic singular progression song. The band seems to do this once on every album they make and this is my least favorite version of it. The whole song is just one long set up chugging along to a climax but none of it is really all that interesting and even the ultimate conclusion itself is a bit of a shrug compared to other songs here. Finally there's the closing track 11th Hour which is an incredibly goofy stomp clap song and while there's a good refrain or two I'm just glad the song is as short as it is.
I know I will be on an island with this one. The Pinegrove fans will be head over heels for the record and the Pinegrove haters will call it utter trash. I come down somewhere in the middle but this time around I think I'm closer to the fans. More often than not on this record we're getting instrumental palettes and progressions that expand upon previous and much more samey projects from the band. Even though I don't find this to be their most impressive lyrical outing a lot of these tracks are good enough to stand on their instrumentation and great hooks. Even when they aren't I don't think the band makes too many terrible mistakes across this 40 minute runtime. Overall I'm pleased with the album and I think it's better than their last, even if I still sometimes wonder if the band is falling short of their potential. 7/10
This is extremely minimal but has a nice punchy quality to it with the combination of colors, texture and pattern. I like the divide of half and half to make the eye move a little more throughout the piece, though I dislike the use of red for the text in the center. It certainly makes it harder to see on the darker green. Also with the choice of font used it seems disjointed and I think if it had just been mirrored across the colon it would have made more sense. It would have maintained the concept of the piece completely across both sides. It's not bad and does what it sets out to do, but I'm not excited by it. 5.5/10
For more indie check out my review of Aeon Station's Observatory here
