Architecture In Helsinki - In Case We Die (2005)

The first thing about Architecture in Helsinki is that, as far as music groups go, they have the best name yet. So modern, so cosmopolitan, so nothing whatsoever to do with an indie collective from Melbourne. It’s perfect. The second thing about Architecture in Helsinki is that, when it comes to the conventions of song structure, they have some authority issues. Verse, chorus, repeat, middle eight, yadda yadda yadda? The hell with that; let’s go for parts 1 to 4. Nothing too prog rock or anything, mind. But I mean, with three minutes to play with, why limit yourself to just one pop song? Why not four?

The opener, ‘Neverevereverdid’ settles for just three parts; (i) a soundtrack to a hammy horror movie; (ii) a number from a school play where the kids who didn’t own instruments were allowed raid their kitchen for any utensils that might make a noise when struck; (iii) an erratic yet jaunty piano-driven chorus/verse/chorus, you know like, a song. It’s all rather breakneck and breathtaking; there are more ideas packed into this one song than you’ll find on an entire album from the next set of NME-sponsored guys with ties. It’s not that Architecture In Helsinki like to dwell too long on anything, though. At the end of the second part, as the rattling pots and pans quicken with the introduction of the drums and a danceable bassline, I found myself bracing for take-off and guitars to rock in, only for all the build-up to be swept away and replaced by the wonky piano. It was like getting absorbed in some T.V. programme only for someone else in the room to change the channel.

The catchiest tune here is ‘Wishbone’, at least for a minute, with its tambourine style and harmonies from ‘Grease’. A fiddle melody to swoon to arrives at the second verse, only for the momentum to be cut short, bizarrely, by a brief lullaby which brings the song to a dead stop. Before starting up again. The interruptions are milder on ‘It’s 5’, another joyous pop song clocking in at two minutes; this one with a wonderful ending as the instrumentation cuts back a notch for some group effort ‘It! Is! 5!’ shouts. ‘Tiny Paintings’ has a similar finish as the keyboards are put on hold for singer Cameron Bird to yell, ‘I found you in the lost and found’, before the keyboards come back to finish the job with an allsorts assortment of percussion.

‘In Case We Die’ is an avalanche of attention-grabbing moments and quirky, clever touches. It must have been a marketer’s dream to pick the thirty-second taster snippets to sell the album on, with set-pieces like the extra beat as the record appears to skip in the verse of ‘Do The Whirlwind’, in between a brass solo and a sitar solo, or the silly voice, then the list of names, then the pedal steel guitar on ‘The Cemetery’. It counts as some relief that they take a couple of breathers during all this. ‘Maybe You Can Owe Me’ falls somewhere between wistful and chilled out, as lyrically they finally move on from the random-phrase-generator and betray some emotion, bracing for a future rendezvous between a couple with a past. A little loose time is even conceded at the end for the guitar and spacey computer effects to meander and dissolve away. Later, on the delicious ‘Need To Shout’, the sound approaches a maturity bordering on relaxed, with a mellow cocktail of tropical bird calls, woodwind and steel drums, where even the shouts seems distant under the haze of rum and moonlight.

For Architecture in Helsinki, however, these laid-back songs are merely breaks, and playtime is the order of the day. Their live performances see them swapping instruments mid-song and dashing frantically around the stage as if their boundless creativity could not be contained, or perhaps as if something brighter and shinier caught their eye. ‘In Case We Die’ reminds me of a kid on Christmas morning ripping the cellophane off one toy before having got the batteries in another, or, in words culled from Dave Eggers’ autobiography: ‘…a music video, a game show on Nickelodeon – lots of quick cuts, crazy camera angles, fun, fun, fun! It’s a campaign of distraction… fireworks, funny dances, magic tricks. Whassat? Lookie there! Where’d it go?’


Tony Kelleher
26.01.2006


Rating: 6.5/10



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