Statistics
Leave Your Name
(Jade Tree)
It was just a couple months ago that the debut self-titled EP by Statistics hit the shelves and let loose with some ambitious ideas that worked in most places. Leave Your Name is the full-length follow-up, and instead of focusing in a bit (the main problem that I had with the EP), it instead goes the other direction, noodling around with loads of layered keyboards and fairly interesting sonics, but rarely pulling together for fully-constructed songs.
The disc opens fairly delightfully, with a slab of keyboard=-injected power-pop that mixes swirling keyboards with twinkling guitars before bursting forth with huge choruses. With critiquing-the-critics lyrics, it's an interesting way to try to put a foot down with a debut, but it mostly works. After that track, though, the disc loses a bit of focus. The second track is nothing more than filler, mixing a telephone error message with swirling guitars while "Grass Is Always Greener" mines serious emo territory with lyrics that again reflect life in a band.
The album isn't entirely sketches, though, and comes through nicely in places. "A Number Not A Name" is a lovely little synth-pop track that shuffles along with a minimal beat and warm keyboard melodies and hushed vocals while "Circular Memories" closes out the disc with what is easily the most realized song on the entire release. Building slowly with intertwining guitar melodies and even a few tinklings on a piano, it's the one instrumental track on the entire release that feels like more than simply messing around with a batch of new keyboards and applying filters.
For sheer pop songs, nothing on the disc beats the blistering "Hours Seemed Like Days" (despite the somewhat hokey lyrics), but that track is also on the EP that came out a couple months ago. As it stands, Leave Your Name is 11 tracks and only 28 minutes long, about half of which feels like noodling. When Dalley focuses in, it's obvious that he has the ability to write songs that work, but overall this debut feels exactly like many others. There are lots of ideas, but not all of them follow-through.
Rating: 6
