Last years best albums countdown

# 5. Rilo Kiley - Under the Blacklight (Warner Bros.)

I had big expectations about this album since 2006 gave us outstanding albums by both Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett, Rabit Fur Coat and the Elected's Sun, Sun, Sun respectively. These albums were both more country-folk-westcoast than the albums the pair has released with Rilo Kiley so I was hoping that this would rub off on the Rilo Kiley songwriting. Well, it sort of did, just not in the way I had expected. At first I must admit I was a little dissapointed in the album, but already at the second listen-through it started to grow on me. It's just a great pop-record by a band that's not afraid to "sell-out". Personally I don't think they have sold out. I just think they have made the album that they wanted to make, and who is to complain when it's as good as this.

Blender Magazine refered to the album as "an album of classically sleek, apocalyptic '70s L.A. coke-rock, in the fine Fleetwood Mac and Steely Dan tradition." I couldn't have said it better myself. It does sound like those bands, but still it sounds completely new. To people who don't know Fleetwood Mac and Steely Dan that good it probably sounds like something completely new, and that is one of the things I love about this album. Both my girlfriend and myself love this album, but for different reasons. Things like that make classic albums.

Well, what about the songs then. The opener "Silver Lining" wouldn't have been out of place on More Adventourous. The first single "Moneymaker" is a untypical Rilo Kiley song and a strange choice for a single, but it shows the direction the band is taking on this album and like the album itself it is a grower. The next song "Breakin' Up" is one of the strongest tracks on the album. A feelgood song about a break up. Kind of a r'n'b feeling to the choruses. Other standouts for me is the titlesong "Under the Blacklight", the honky-tonk swagger of "15" and Blake Sennett's "Dreamworld" which sounds like it's stolen from one of Lindsay Buckingham's lost demotapes around Fleetwood Mac's Rumours or Tusk.


Under the Blacklight may have been dissapointing to some of Rilo Kiley's fans but to them I just have one thing to say: Open your goddamn ears!

Comments

tone almhjell said…
This is one of my favourite bands, and I didn't get the album. Yet. Canj't wait to see who are in the top three, mine are already futher down the list: Neon Bible, Hissing Fauna and Cassadaga.
tone almhjell said…
Hah. Trøndenglish!