Guster’s Eighth Album Full of Pop and Angst

With their eighth release, Look Alive, Guster reaffirms the talents displayed throughout their oeuvre and particularly on their two standout albums, 1999’s Lost and Gone Forever and 2006’s Ganging Up on the Sun, embracing signature pop/bubblegum affinities, including irresistible hooks, while enhancing their palette with moody tones, angsty lyrics, and engaging instrumentation. The album opens with the title song, a pensive tune that incorporates post-Britpop (Coldplay, Radiohead) textures and vocal articulations. “The sun came up, the world began to shake / fault lines exposing all my own mistakes,” Ryan Miller sings, voice alternately au naturel and bathed in reverb, synth-y instrumental lines and accents nudging the track into quasi-psychedelic territory. “Don’t Go” opens with a melodically awkward verse, the chorus launching into anthemic realms, conjuring the radio-friendly gems of Duran Duran or Tears for Fears.

Guster has consistently produced winning melodies; on previous releases, however, the band focused less on atmospheric subtleties. Much credit should be given to producer (and multi-instrumentalist) Leo Abrahams, who has ushered the band in a more etheric direction. For example: “Hello Mister Sun,” a McCartney-esque ditty that features roiling instrumental lines, and “Overexcited,” which might well be a riff on an early Syd Barrett tune. “A few blocks down, there’s Dawn / she’s got spinach on her teeth / in between the front ones, / just a little bitty leaf / And I try to speak, but Dawn makes me nervous,” lyrics that border on juvenilia but land as intriguing due to the surreal twist on the everyday – as well as the punkish/faux Brit vocal delivery – the chorus elevating into a hummable hook.

“Terrified” is reminiscent of Guster’s earlier recordings, founded on a well-crafted if slightly cobbled melody, ambient elements kept to a minimum. “Mind Kontrol” is the most ambitious track on the album, subtle instrumental parts transitioning into a welter of sounds, including moments of Dionysian noise; Miller’s vocal atypically low in the mix, a move that draws heightened attention to instrumentation; and most notably Luke Reynolds’ supple bass part. The song is also the album’s most confessionally complex piece, addressing psychological isolation (“Come get me out of this hole”), the contemporary dependence on technology as a substitute for community, and the human tendency to (unconsciously) defer power to marketing teams, news media, and Hollywood (“Mama give me the remote control / transmissions from those in the know”). The album closes with “When You Go Quiet,” a synth-heavy track that balances ebullient sounds with lyrical references to the epidemic nihilism of the 21st century (“Because it’s hard to wake up / When you just want to sleep / And bend to the will of gravity”). In this way, Look Alive’s final track is an apt conclusion to the project, illustrating Guster’s further honing of established approaches and continued exploration of new techniques, production methods, and creative gestalts.