Young the Giant ~ Mind Over Matter

6.7

If Young the Giant's self-titled debut was a hot, sunny day (they did record a live version of "I Got" in the desert), then Mind Over Matter is the hot summer night that follows. A few tracks still carry the same brightness that much of the band's previous album contained; but even these sunny spots, namely "Daydreamer" and "In My Home," feel more like speeding into the sunset than strumming guitars on a warm afternoon. In a way, this dimming of the lights takes away from the upbeat and carefree sound that drew me to Young the Giant (then The Jakes) in the first place. But, it also provides a route for more a meaningful, if slightly dark, message. Consistently throughout the album that message tends to lean towards regret as frontman Sameer Gadhia sings about the way things could be instead of how they are. Nowhere is this regret more poignant than on "Camera," where Gadhia asks himself, "why can't I get close to the man I saw in me when I was young?" And though that line itself may be a little blunt, the chorus of the song seems to cut straight to the heart of Mind Over Matter: "On holiday with a broken camera / and all I say is I could be happier / I could be happier."

All this so far makes the album out as quite the bleak affair, but it spans a fairly wide range of emotions throughout its thirteen tracks, a range that actually adds to the impact of those moments of sheer regret. One of the strongest points in the album is its opening track (excluding the 48-second intro) "Anagram," which showcases what I consider the band's strongest musical attribute, their tone. The song opens with a crisp, bright guitar riff, which weaves its way in and out of the track between passionate yet reserved vocals, a staccato bass line, and a bridge that rings out with more bright, nearly tropical-sounding guitar reverberations. This track and those "sunny spots" I mentioned above provide a context for the regret - nearly sorrow - that shows up again and again on the album. The listener sees both passion and pain here, rejoice and regret.

And yet for how thematically connected (assuming stark contrast counts as connection) the songs of Mind Over Matter seem to be, there is a lack of segue from any one track to the next. Even the move from the introductory track "Slow Dive" to the first full song of the album, "Anagram," seems more of a disruption than a transition, as if the band felt a need for sudden movement less than one minute into the album. Certainly variety between songs is appreciated on just about any album, but the type of variety Young the Giant include on this album can sometimes leave the listener feeling disoriented, even jerked around a bit. That rollercoaster of feeling could be intentional, since the album does convey the highs and lows of youthful passion, from the "I want to dance / and I'm not dancing alone" of "Eros" to the point in the album's closing track where one is left "paralyzed on the floor." But, the transitions between those contrasting moments in the album tend to feel more like bipolar disorder than the emotional swings of the relatively youthful. The tracks on Mind Over Matter definitely take the listener up and down, but it would be nice if that ride didn't feel quite so jarring.