Jack and Lily Wolter, the siblings who head up the British indie band Penelope Isles, spent the five years between their second and third albums doing the kinds of things people in indie bands tend to do. Namely, they started side-project bands, released solo albums, and went surfing. Well, the surfing may not be all that common, but it does go along with Penelope Isles’ sound and that of the new album 3 in particular.
Penelope Isles‘ 3 has a relaxed, often languid feel, punctuated by moments of tension and unease. The Wolter siblings’ high-pitched, almost distorted, nearly interchangeable voices often engage in close harmonies, but they lack any sun-drenched vibrations. Instead, 3 seems to ride a musical and emotional tide, with stretches of tranquility offset by sudden bursts of tension and discomfort, making for some poignant listening.
The eccentric effervescence that surfaced on previous Penelope Isles albums is all but gone, as the Wolters, along with new addition Joe Taylor, instead alternate expansive, literate mid-tempo indie songs with the small-scale intimacy that has always been part of their work. 3 is a pretty sad album, something of a song cycle about heartbreak, reflection, and uncertainty. Yet it is usually more comforting than depressing.
Some of the best songs combine these widescreen and narrow-focus elements, giving a pretty good idea of what 3 is all about. The first track, “Another Kind of Love”, sets not only a tone but also a pretty high standard for what follows. A keyboard twinkles into space as guitars strum gently and off-kilter electronic percussion marks the time. Jack Wolter ruminates about the ambivalence of relationships and the inherent risk in commitment: “She won a tenner on a scratch card / Is it a gamble I can handle / I really wanna understand you / But then I might not wanna share you.”
In the end, the stakes are too high. “Girl, it’s been fun,” is the final line in the song and maybe the relationship. It’s all a bit Fleetwood Mac, actually, but a Fleetwood Mac that’s spent far more time under overcast British skies than California stars.
“Birthdays” is structured around an urgent guitar arpeggio that sounds more like an alarm, an invocation that suits a song about distance and time. With a swelling, half-time turnaround and strong quiet-loud dynamics, the track is pretty much everything you’d hope for in moody indie music. “Moonwalker” lives up to its title, with a big, swinging guitar riff giving way to a snail-crawl tempo and sparse atmosphere before it starts up again, shot through with distorted guitar on the extended coda.
It’s easy to hear why “Thinking Seat” was the lead single. It’s not quite upbeat, but it’s closer than anything else on 3. With a hooky chorus and subtle electronic flourishes, it shows the Wolters haven’t strayed too far from their old jaunty ways.
Some of the more intimate moments are strikingly pretty. The sweet, reflective “Bon-bains” is almost a folk song, with its acoustic guitar and Lily Wolter’s earnest singing, but few folk songs end with an overdriven guitar solo. “Am I Going Through This Alone” closes the album breathtakingly. The gentle two-step rhythm, the Wolters’ soft, layered vocals, and bits of ambient conversation turn a broken heart into a dreamy reverie, perhaps at a quiet beach.
If there is any downside to 3, it’s that it deals in a sound and atmosphere that is, at this point, almost overfamiliar. The combination of delicate emotions and atmospheric, indie-pop song structures calls to mind North American acts such as Slow Pulp and Alvvays. “I Loved You Robert Pattinson” is such an indie title it seems to have created itself, yet it doesn’t measure up to similarly-minded songs like Camera Obscura’s “Lloyd [Cole], I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken” or Alvvays’ “Lollipop (Ode to Jim [Reid])”.
On an album whose ten tracks total under 40 minutes, 3‘s less distinguished songs come into greater relief. The one-minute “Embo” is literally barely there, while “Pretty in Pixels” is a too-obvious take on modern long-distance communication. Time will tell if 3 finds its own comfortable cove in the current sea of indie moodiness and fascination with all things dreamy and “gazey”. It’s certainly good enough to.