Review Summary: Boston's best kept secret releases one of the most accomplished debuts you'll hear all year.
In a world of endlessly transformational music streaming formats, Bandcamp.com has been a home for accomplished and determined musicians alike all over the globe. Speaking from personal experience, some of the most well-rounded underground groups and artists around right now can be found there, and the Relevant Elephants are no exception. Suddenly spiking in popularity just over 24 hours ago due to, get this, an AskReddit thread, this Boston group is finally getting the recognition they deserve after being a local jewel in their hometown of Boston for nearly half a decade. “Paper Walls” is in many ways a fantastic debut record for the band, capitalizing on the best of their previous strengths while showcasing a large amount of growth in terms of songwriting, musicality and unified sound.
The Relevant Elephants are;
-Zack Hankins (rhythm guitar, lead vocals on tracks 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9)
-Drew Lucas (lead guitar, lead vocals on tracks 1, 5, 3, 7)
-Adam Khalil (bass guitar)
-Macklin Suhre (drums)
On paper, The Relevant Elephants seem like a very traditional rock n’ roll band, a point they like to bring up themselves occasionally in the lyrics on this record. This is the kind of music you can picture being played on alternative radio or in a stadium and is basically universally accessible music. However, if one listens a bit deeper and explores the band’s background, they will quickly discover what sets them apart. The instrumental and vocal talent in this band is nothing short of incredible. Bassist Adam Khalil and drummer Macklin Suhre are both Berklee College of Music graduates, and it shows in their incredibly tight musicianship and ownership of rhythm. Hankins is an ingenious songwriter and powerful vocalist and manages to make even clichés original by turning them on their head (album highlight “Rock n’ Roll Band.”). Lead guitarist Lucas can shred with the best of them and boasts an extremely impressive vocal range in songs like “Ivory Tower” (no pun intended, apparently). Paper Walls takes these varied, energetic, talented personalities and melds them into an easily enjoyable 40 minutes of good ol’ fashioned rock and roll with a technical edge.
However, it’s easy to argue that any member of a band is talented, at least a band that people know about. Now that the Relevant Elephants have shown themselves as the unique artists that they are, let’s take a look at the art itself. Opening track “Ivory Tower” is a master craft in the art of songwriting, featuring soaring vocal leads from Lucas, beautiful interplay between acoustic and electric guitars, and a tasteful dynamic range that starts off soft and ends in a dramatic fashion. The track listing is put together really well, as no song on the album sounds anything like what precedes it. This is immediately proved by the transition from “Ivory Tower” into “Allston and Brighton Are For Drinkin’ and Fightin’”, a raging piece of hard rock characterized by furiously uptempo drumming from Suhre, booming distortion, and a rollicking 8th-note bassline from Khalil that shows instrumental capacity as well as restraint. Hankins showcases himself as a vocalist for the first time on this track and provides a fresh contrast from Lucas’s vocals, as his gruff, intense style fits the song extremely well.
The album continues in this fashion, featuring rough-around-the-edges jam tracks like deep cut “Curse” and highly refined, polished, and frankly beautiful songs like “Starving Artist” that wouldn’t be out of place on rock radio. The tracks released on the band’s 2015 EP that made it here show an outstanding growth not only in musicianship, but also in an understanding of the band’s sonic attack. There’s no denying that the more recent cuts on this record sound more put together, which actually makes the rawer songs from earlier in the band’s history sound that much more raw and provide a much needed contrast. These characteristics end up meeting in the middle on album highlight and centerpiece “Rock n’ Roll Band”. “Rock n’ Roll Band” is the band’s best song to date, a songwriting triumph featuring confident vocals from Hankins, fantastic dual guitar work, some of Khalil’s most deft bass work, and genre-shifting, mind-bending drum work from Suhre. The key ingredient here is the lyrics, which can often be one of the band’s weak points. It’s a battle cry from a band that’s incredibly confident in their ability, but can’t help but fear the future. It’s a song that asks question we all often ask ourselves as lovers of music; has it all been done? Will ground ever broken again? Does the world really need another rock and roll band? All of these questions are asked while some of the freshest instrumentals and vocal harmonies of the year boom through the speakers. How wonderful.
Every album can expected to have at least one weakness, and this album’s no exception, great as it is. As I mentioned before, the lyrics. While they can be strong in songs in like “Rock n’ Roll Band” and “Starving Artist”, metaphors like the one on the chorus of “Ivory Tower” can appear a bit heavy-handed, while “Allston and Brighton” and “A Yes or A No” describe scenarios almost passively, not really letting the listener be immersed in any sort of story. Also, the mix can be a bit weird at times, to say the least. This is a problem most audible on “Allston and Brighton”, which can have nearly inaudible bass at points and a poorly mic’d snare drum that picks up a rather annoying echo. It’s a shame, because the song features one of the most engaging drum parts that Suhre wrote for the records (for his best work, check out the title track, which shows off his double bass chops.
All in all, this is one of the most novel debut records I’ve heard in a while and I hope it continues to be exposed at the rate which it currently is. The Relevant Elephants are finally being recognized as the great musicians that they are, and their debut album only confirms their competence and musical skill. I look forward to what they have to offer us in the future.
4.1 / 5.
Recommended Tracks (asterisk = best track)
-Starving Artist
-Rock n’ Roll Band*
-Paper Walls
-A Yes Or A No
