MUSIC: Eisley - Valleys

I always wonder why critics reacted to Fleetwood Mac so harshly back in the halcyon days of FM radio in the 70s. Even if as the soft-rock will-they-or-won't they aesthetic might have rubbed some the wrong way as trifle and licentious I wonder how they could have missed - what sounded to my ear today anyway - a sound so sophisticated. Those subdued harmonies, the sad/major chord progressions, the never-overwhelming but still affecting mix of all the instruments: it must have been incredibly difficult to achieve and it always surprises me that the critics back then couldn't hear that. You can string a thin thread from those albums to what Eisley is trying to do today with Valleys. But while the trifle persists from the 70s, the sophistication never really materializes, particularly in the pastel-colored first half.

The voices lilt and ooh in satisfying ways but the unbroken, fluent connection between how proximately pretty and ultimately vapid the proceedings are prevents any real enjoyment.

When the target is "plaintive" the execution is usually something more like "exasperated." Similarly, "joyful" begets "saccharine." Every emotion is scrambled to the point that an album that's ostensibly aimed at adult listener never comes across in the manner intended.  Everything lacks subtext, nuance or anything that feels grown-up.  It's not unlike a teenager demanding a curfew change by throwing a hissy-fit.  The content doesn't match the execution.

By the time "Better Love" arrives midway through achieving a pleasingly solid execution of what can only presume was the intent all along, the die has already been cast. This is, at its core, a pretty lightweight album. Lightweight doesn't have to be a bad thing, female fronted indie acts superficially similar to Eisley have made some of the best pop in recent years without trying to shoot the moon thematically: Tegan & Sara, Camera Obscura, Imogen Heap; but there's an atmosphere of grandiosity that implies Eisely was gunning for more. To hear this distinction embodied, take "Mr. Moon," which begins with a lush and very sad verse building genuine stakes only to let all fall away into a nothing of a chorus.

There could have been something here but Eisley squandered any possible goodwill by mixing in pretensions (delusions) of Important Things with a swill of too-sugary soft rock radio.