ANIMA!: Grow Your Garden Review


 

I don't even know how I heard of this group. I do listen to similar music, so probably some suggestion on music streaming services I decided to take a chance on. They don't seem to be very popular, and I even had a hard time looking them up later. That's something I hope will change, because Grow Your Garden has that rare "diamond in the rough" quality I haven't heard since Alt-J.

I love a great non-traditional melody, and that's doing a lot of the work here. My music history is full of left-field musicians like Tune Yards, Radiohead, Little Dragon, the aformentioned Alt-J, Kishi Bashi....surprise, at least a little, is necessary for me. If you like all those bands, good news! it seems so does Anima. All of them have a love of droning, genre switches, and delicacy/headbanging dynamics, and Anima have seemed almost to have taken something from each group wholesale.

I do, as a result of that, find myself having a tough time describing any opinions I have about this album. It's somewhere in the middle of the alt artrock scene. That lack of identity doesn't make what is presented bad, but it might be part of the reason they haven't made a blip on the radar. Take Marion Hill for example: sultry, simple, sample-forward. Taking those ideas and honing them has paid dividends quite well. The Tallest Man On Earth slowly developed into a larger affair from the 1 person, 1 instrument debut, and it is clear no step was made until it felt steady.

Anima isn't taking those routes with Grow Your Garden. There is a demo tape panache to the presentation, but I don't think it's intentional. Throne starts off with a sliding melody and lush quiet guitarwork before moving to stabbing synths and tinny vocal samples--they don't quite play well together, but it's not jarring either. Toughest Man fares better on matching production and vocals, sounding very St Vincent, but the chorus falls a little flat. In and Out shoves drumloops and synths in where a simpler thump and the grand piano earlier in the song would have done a better job holding the dour song together.

Other areas of the album do find some great balance for the ideas. Although I don't want to see the band go this direction, I think they do a better job of a Little Dragon style song with opener Aorta than Little Dragon does. Actually, Ear to Ear fits that argument as well, with the staccato singing, balalaika, and synth playing all in harmony instead of taking turns. Streaks is where the album really finds something special, especially with the parently lyrics to a child home from school--very good. Overflow is also a really well crafted song, moving up and down with satisfying motifs blending with the cadence of the vocals.

Sometimes it feels like overcompensation for a lack of instruments and adequate recording environments. I get the lack of confidence in that situation, but there are ways to make it work that I don't find here. It's a learning process, and a crapshoot too. I'll say it again: they have opportunity. The songwriting is strong, if they can figure out how to dress them up, they have a good career ahead of them.

6/10

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