QuickTune: Lydia – Paint It Golden

If you were paying close attention to The Tune during our move, you might’ve read a review I wrote for a new indie pop-rock album by a band called The Cinema; the album impressed me enough to earn a 4.1.  And if you listened to that album, you would’ve heard Leighton Antelman telltale soothing-yet-nasal vocals — the same ones that you’ll hear on Arizona band Lydia‘s fourth release, Paint It Golden.  The man is prolific, if inconsistent — Lydia’s 2010 release Assailants was a huge disappointment in the wake of their watery, sultry Illuminate, one of my favorite albums of 2008.  And in the same manner, Golden suffers from two maladies: the first is that, with the exception of some extra layers of sound, the songs sound exactly like the pop-rock of My Blood Is Full of Airplanes, losing the liquid quality that framed Illuminate; the second is that Antelman seems to have saved his best songwriting for The Cinema.  Golden is full of 3- and 4-star emotive pop-rock songs that many times sound a little too familiar (“Hailey,” the opener, steals its melody from “I Woke Up Near the Sea”).  And the best moments — “Eat Your Heart Out,” “I’ll Bite You,” “Birds” — meander along the same paths as Lydia’s past work, but it stays grounded rather than soaring and diving. It’s a fine album — easily a better release than Assailants – but that’s all it is.  Just fine.  Go check out My Blood Is Full of Airplanes.

-Jordy Kasko

Stream: “Hailey”