Jeff Buckley and Elliott Smith had substantial followings during their lifetimes, but since both had singular voices and made music that recombined older sounds, it was hard to imagine either as an enduring influence. Tell that to the generation that grew up singing along to Buckley and Smith, and is now making its own records with a familiar dramatic sweep. The Santa Rosa trio The Velvet Teen follows the grandiose Buckley model rather than the more hushed Smith version, but like both of them, The Velvet Teen has figured out how to achieve a majestic effect without settling for mere bombast.
The band pulls it off by following the model of simpatico indie rockers like Death Cab For Cutie and Red House Painters as much as resounding Euro-pop-art acts like Radiohead, though the latter is clearly an influence. Mostly, The Velvet Teen sounds like Buckley, had the late singer been obsessed with Brian Wilson instead of Led Zeppelin. The new Elysium sounds more lush and less immediately rocking than The Velvet Teen's 2002 debut, Out Of The Fierce Parade. Quaver-voiced Judah Nagler surrounds light, pretty melodies with blankets of strings, background vocals, sputtering drums, and rippling piano, letting the music rise and fall like slow breathing.
The album's centerpiece, the 13-minute "Chimera Obscurant," puts Nagler's diary-like lyrics to a low, percussive piano line that builds to a full-on symphony by the time Nagler reaches his climactic rant, a tumble of verbiage that seems to address how people cling to lies because they're more meaningful than truth. It's a bold, engrossing song, especially coming after the equally fluid, confessional tracks "Penicillin (It Doesn't Mean Much)" and "A Captive Audience." At once mature in sound and adolescent in theme, Elysium establishes The Velvet Teen's place in an alt-pop universe where every emotion can be both deeply felt and faintly fatiguing.