In 2010, Local Natives released Gorilla Manor in the United States, their debut album that, despite its energy and ingenuity, slipped through the cracks of the rising indie/post-punk/psychedelic scene. Sandwiched in among new albums from Vampire Weekend to LCD Soundsystem and released only about eight months after The Temper Trap’s Conditions, Gorilla Manor unfortunately got lost in the mix.
As a music fan that completely overlooked the band, I will take partial responsibility for their slighting. My first time hearing Local Natives was only a few months ago when a friend of mine played Gorilla Manor for me. If there is one thing I can appreciate hipsters for, it’s their uncanny ability to defy radio play and (albeit rarely) find music that reminds me of why I still (try to) buy full albums.
Three years later, Local Natives tightened their sound and are noticeably more mature in their songwriting and composition. Their sophomore effort, Hummingbird, with the production of The National’s Aaron Dessner, exhibits Local Natives leaving the tribal influence that was found on songs like “Sun Hands” behind for a more deliberate sound.
In “Heavy Feet,” the band sounds as if they took a step back to straighten out their sometimes wild and free-flowing aesthetic. In this song, more than the others, Dressner noticeably imposes his will and layers fast-paced snare drumming, simple guitar chords, dreamy riffs and fluctuating vocals. The song crescendos toward the end, pushing all the layers to a cliff where they abruptly fall off, sending the listener on an affecting free fall that echoes the equally emotional lyrics, “After everything/left in the sun, shivering/after everything.”
“Heavy Feet,” which makes a serious case for the best song on the album, carries a titular weight with it that was not often found on Gorilla Manor, and as only the second song on the album it sets a precedent for the rest of the record.
Hummingbird makes a slight turn toward their harder rock roots—if you can call it that—on its second half. This starts with “Black Balloons,” in which the first real guitar solo is heard (seven songs into the twelve song album) and tips during “Wooly Mammoth.”
But guitar solos and overzealous drum digressions are not this album’s strengths. The listener is brought back to earth with the moody cries of “Colombia” near the end of the album before finishing off with a distorted guitar outro on “Bowery.” In contrast to “Heavy Feet’s” spirited lament, “Colombia” hits home with a simple piano progression and even more so with Kelcey Ayer’s incredibly moving and gloomy lyrics. Ayer asks a question that everyone asks themselves at some point in their lives: “Am I giving enough,” reflecting personal bouts with emotion in the listener as well as the overall mood of the album.
Lyrically, Ayer takes a much darker tone than he did on Gorilla Manor, most likely due to the death of his mother last summer. Though you wouldn’t be able to tell from the composition of Hummingbird, the lyrics tell a tale full of self-doubt and frustration. In “Ceilings,” Local Natives pull a page out of The Avett Brothers’ folk playbook, and write a song about self-limitations and defeat. “Tell me what I know again/to keep myself from second guessing.” This theme shows up in virtually every song, presumably just as Ayer intended as he mourns his late mother. In “Black Spot,”
Ayer cries “I’m dying wrong, I can read it in the whites/And the thing is, I knew it before.”
He continues with this (“Breathing out, hoping to breath in/I know nothing’s wrong but I’m not convinced,” in “Breakers”) until the album hits the only song that caught my finger inching towards the next button. “Three Months” takes the listener too low. The piano becomes overly simplified to the point where it becomes less than entertaining. In an album with so much emotion packed into the lyrics, the entertainment of the instrumentals can be forgotten about as a principle aspect of listening to music. The music here seems to have been a secondary thought, making this song a secondary listen and better appreciated as poetry rather than as music.
Something has been curbed since their first album, and some will say that it is the energy. Hummingbird has no shortage of energy; it is just focused elsewhere. Rather than focusing on youthful exploration, Local Natives have instead found their destination. The band definitely still has room to grow. What is missing is a healthy middle ground between their newfound depth and their old-school tribal rock. Still, a more mellow sound and intensely emotional lyrics have helped them top their debut album and, in doing so, define themselves as more than a Fleet Foxes look alike.
