This is All Yours
by Alt-J
Distributed by Infectious
Alt-J’s second album soothes and excites, intrigues and inspires, rises and falls. It does it all.
This is All Yours is a definitive departure from the sound that shocked the alternative world with 2012’s An Awesome Wave. The rattling synth hits are few and far between, replaced instead by mellow harmonies that float you through the album.
The album’s opening track, “Intro” promises good things early. An array of voices sing soft staccato la-la-las before breaking into murky drumbeats and half-heard distant lyrics. It climaxes on exotic scales and tribal chanting, throwing you into the “Nara” suite that follows.
It begins with “Arrival in Nara,” a distant track carried by faint acoustic guitar. Inspired by the picturesque Nara prefecture in Japan, the band sings “Though I cannot see/I can hear her smile as she sings.” The music arrives into the paradise of “Nara.”
“Nara” starts as a slow build, singing a chorus of “Hallelujahs” before the drumbeat drops heavy below the synesthetic lyrics of “Love is the warmest colour.” A dark tension broods behind the entire song. Ethereal vocals dance around the scale, reaching a passionate climax at the chorus of “I’ve discovered a man like no other man.”
The final part of the Nara suite bookends the album, closing with a spiritualistic singing of “Bovay Alabama/I’ll bury my hands deep into the mane of my lover.”
The calm tones of the album are interrupted by the erotic “Every Other Freckle.” Warm instruments crawl up the voluptuous curves of the song backed by heavy thrusts of synth. Lead singer Joe Newman moans strange similes, comparing sex to a cat bedding in a beanbag, saying he wants to “turn you inside out and lick you like a crisp packet.” The song finishes on a desperate repeated call of “I want every other freckle.”
“Left Hand Free” is undoubtedly the most energetic track on the album, with groovy guitar lines and choppy lyrics sounding like they deserve a dancing silhouette iTunes commercial.
“Hunger of the Pine” recaptures the eroticism of “Every Other Freckle” albeit in a different way. A single throbbing pulse carries the song as the music builds around it. Suddenly, the band drops a sample of Miley Cyrus singing “I’m a female rebel,” and the drums envelop you. It explodes in a chorus of “Sleeplessly embracing you” atop several layers of vocals and carries with enough force to leave you breathless by the time the song is over.
Like so much of the album, “The Gospel of John Hurt” begins on simple musical ideas and builds from a simple jumpy marimba into an increasingly chaotic rhythm. Newman sings in his broken glass croon, syncopating with a rolling cacophony behind him. When the song can’t go any further up, the bottom falls out and we’re left with the same marimba melody.
“Bloodflood Pt. II” is a logical continuation of the original. It sings of intense passions and violence, capped by the ever-so-familiar line “Dead in the middle of the C-O-double M-O-N.” The parallels to its predecessor continue with a crescendo coda carried by the lyrics “A flood of blood to the heart.”
This is All Yours grows with each listen. Alt-J clearly still have plenty up their sleeve and continue to be one of the most creative, enthralling listens out there today.
