The Avalanches
Wildflower
XL/Astralwerks
THE Avalanches comeback set at Primavera in Spain last month was a disappointment. Fifteen years after Since I Left You, now deservedly considered one of the albums of the noughties, fireworks and a herd of unicorns might still have left the audience feeling short-changed, so when Robbie Chater and Tony DiBlasi finally appeared with what was simply a fun DJ set, the disappointment was already there, waiting.
Allegedly a decade in the making, The Avalanche’s long-rumoured sophomore outing initially seems doomed to be crushed beneath similarly colossal expectations. It works in fits and starts – opener Because I’m Me has a breezy, winning confidence, and Colours (featuring Mercury Rev’s Jonathan Donahue) remains swooningly gorgeous. Overall however, and despite 21 tracks, it doesn’t feel enough. The cover’s Family Stone allusions highlight obvious parallels with Wildflower’s party-mix approach. Yet too often the album feels like it’s referring to something beyond itself; driven by a beguiling yet frustrating sense of nostalgia, of beautiful things glimpsed, heartbreakingly, from a distance.
Ten days after Primavera, however, the band dropped the "desk tape" of their comeback set. Heard in the cold light of day, it was funny, poignant and deeply imaginative. And the same is true of Wildflower: once you’re over the hangover of impossible expectation, it is a lot of fun.
Jamie Chambers
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