The Elected's Me First greets you like a sunrise: calm major chords urge you to sink from a tense L-position to a slouch of exhaustion. Sub Pop records retains a colorful cast, The Elected among the notable Postal Service and The Shins. Don't worry, it's still indie enough. Like Wilco, it's alternative rock in touch with its American roots.
Indie-fans, don't cringe: The Elected hail from Los Angeles, the city that demonstrates the worst of America while creating pop culture standards. Crying from monotonous suburban streets among silicon-stuffed women, ghastly class inequity and Hollywood superficiality, The Elected offer a tender reconsideration of L.A.
Really, it's that kind of music you'd listen to in dire circumstances: ugly surroundings, post-breakup or just a bad day. Surf-rock chords wave over pop-rock vocals, never too loud. It's a California smoothie, characterized by glides of slide guitar, vocal glisses and a tempered volume. Close your eyes and picture bubbles rising into a windless sunset. Reddened and yellowed with noxious smog, that cancer-causing excrement, the sky gleams with man-contributed beauty.
Open your eyes and notice the tempo never beckons your heart to beat faster. However, it should flutter at the sound of reserved backbeats, plucks and delightful predictions, like California weather. With this, The Elected has the potential to lure anti-country indie rockers out of their formulaic hole.
Anyone driving the famous Highway 1 should snag this album, a red convertible and drive through the 1960s American dream. Forget the chemicals that murder the seas, the nauseating smog or those underpaid strawberry field workers. Still, no matter how hard The Elected tries, it does not stray too far from Sub Pop's synthesizer requirement.
Starting several songs with a soft electronic beat, however, their surf-chords squash over any potential for abuse.
Moreover, The Elected has built a bridge between the uncharted abyss between country, surf and indie rock. Like colors, music is a palette meant for exploration through combination and reinvention.
Reach the reporter at Christopher.Kark@asu.edu
