Dorks And Losers

Austin, Texas-based duo Ghost­land Obser­va­tory have blended so many dif­fer­ent artists and so many dif­fer­ent gen­res into their elec­tro glam rock that men­tion­ing all, if any, seems redun­dant. If you mix a hun­dred dif­fer­ent things into a smoothie, would a sin­gle ingre­di­ent be notice­able or even impor­tant dur­ing the final blend?

And of course, every smoothie straw full is cer­tainly dif­fer­ent. Lis­ten­ing to Ghost­land Obser­va­tory just hap­pens to be like that odd sip that makes you sec­ond guess your deci­sion to make such a con­coc­tion in the first place. You’re at a stand­still. Do the sips before that fate­ful last gulp war­rant one more try or did it for­ever scar your taste buds and to indulge your curios­ity would be to play a game of Russ­ian roulette?

Cer­tainly G.O. makes bet­ter music that is less divid­ing to music lis­ten­ers, but the duo’s third album Robo­t­ique Majes­tique sur­pris­ingly feels alien­at­ing, split into a love it or hate it attitude.

It’s hard to pin­point why this is so given that the pair Aaron Behrens (vocals, gui­tar) and Thomas Ross Turner (drums, syn­the­sizer) sounded so enthused and cre­ative on their pre­vi­ous two albums delete.delete.i.eat.meat and Paparazzi Light­ning.

With any type of elec­tronic music, the music should almost always come cen­ter stage, which is partly so on the duo’s lat­est release. They even devote the open­ing and clos­ing tracks (“Open­ing Cred­its” and “Club Soda,” respec­tively) to being lyric-free. The prob­lem is that many of the other tracks have the music rel­e­gated to sim­ply being back­ground fill while Behrens’ vocals get the atten­tion. You could barely hear any of the accom­pa­ny­ing synths on the anthem-like “Heavy Heart” and you can under­stand Behren’s evan­ge­lism in “Danc­ing On My Grave” loud and clear.

Robo­t­ique Majes­tique seems short at ten tracks, but its 39-minutes feel long and mean­der­ing. It’s too bad that the title track and Michael Jackson-inspired “Free­heart Lover” seemed to be the only rem­nants of the duo’s past and almost dis­tant sound, and it’s even worse that the clos­ing track ends as the album should have began.

[photo via Big Apple Music Scene]

[photo via LAist]
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Track list:

1. Open­ing Cred­its
2. Heavy Heart
3. No Place For Me
4. Free­heart Lover
5. Dancin’ On My Grave
6. Robo­t­ique Majes­tique
7. The Band Marches On
8. Holy Ghost White Noise
9. HFM
10. Club Soda

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