Austra: Feel It Break

Austra
Feel It Break
Rating: Meh

One of my strange quirks in listening to an album is that I generally know from a first listen if I like every song on the album, I will most likely end up hating the album later. I suppose my brain enjoys a bit of a challenge, and wants to have the songs grow in my consciousness. I recently gave a Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It review to Craft Spell's new album, not really caring for most of the album at the time, and subtly, it has become one of my favorite albums of the year. Unfortunately, unlike Craft Spells, Austra's debut album is not heading down that path. I loved it on the first listen, but subsequent passes have been less fruitful, with the quirks I enjoyed becoming more annoying.

Deep within Feel It Break are the bones of a promising band. Katie Stelmanis has a strong, supple voice that reaches almost operatic heights at times, and feels akin to artists like Florence and the Machine, Kate Bush, and Bat For Lashes. Musically, Austra is square in the goth/electro field, sounding like a cross between early Nine Inch Nails and more modern female electronica in the vein of Fever Ray, Glasser, and Grimes. When the band is on, the songs are forceful and engaging, but too often, the songs lock into weak musical grooves that play against the strong vocals.

"Beat And the Pulse," the first single and arguably one of the best songs of the year, has a throbbing, electronic beat that takes over your central nervous system.



Likewise, "The Villian" is all spooky menace, Stelmanis' voice getting more and more unstable as the chorus hits.

Austra "The Villain" by Fred Hystere

Austra really shows its potential range on album opener "Darken Her Horse," a slow building track quietly moving from dense pulses of synthesizers to a galloping beat, with edgy wails of keyboards punctuating her frantic vocal.



And on "Spellwork" the clunky, early Depeche Mode-like synths counterbalance her more formal vocal.

AUSTRA_Spellwork by cha_

Too often though, the musical backing is not up to the challenge of her remarkable voice. "Lose It" finds Stelmanis' voice in glass breaking territory, showing off a lovely vibrato, but dashing it with Garageband preset-like twinkling keyboards.

Austra - Lose It by tuckshop

"The Choke" again ruins a strong vocal with simplistic keyboard lines.

Austra - The Choke by brettnaul

"Hate Crime" is one of the few songs where Stelmanis' voice actually loses the brilliant control shown over the majority of the album; though the song is somewhat redeemed by a memorable chorus.

Austra - Hate Crime by slowtumb

The one major complaint about the album is how I really like a lot of the individual elements, but that they never coalesced into something more. Just as some cohesion was coming in, the band would ruin it with a strange aside or weak instrumentation. And then just when I would get ready to throw in the towel, they would pull together a great song like "The Beast," which is the most organic sounding track, and shows a promising direction for the band to pursue.

Austra - The Beast by pipedreamin

Feel It Break is a frustrating debut from Austra, as it becomes painful over the course of the tracks to see so many missed chances. Austra's strengths are very evident and had they used those as a base to launch from, I could see this being a very striking debut. As it stands, however, we are left with a series of almost there but not quite songs that could have used a more firm handling.

Rating Guide

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and peaks one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.