In Tall Buildings

Driver

10
10/10
Joel Frieders | January 26, 2015

In Tall Buildings sounds like Matthew Sweet fronting Band of Horses meets Caribou, and then some really fucking cool space aged cell phone is ringing in the background, but you hear them all together and it's just the titties bro.

Seriously tho, the way In Tall Buildings makes everything sound so rustic, yet futuristic is fucking delicious. Futurustic bro. In Tall Buildings is "futurustic".

The acoustic guitar has GPS bro.

Take the evenly calm meter in Exiled, it's nearly identical in skin feels to hearing some early untitled Band of Horses melody you can hum to yourself in a creaky rocking chair on some porch out in bufu. Your head is slowly bobbing from side to side until you realize you're now wearing an apple watch bro. Then on the other wrist bro? IS THAT A FITBIT BRO?!?!?! WHAT THE HELLS IS A FITBIT BRO!??!! See, when you pop in In Tall Buildings, the future is you bro.

The synth bringing up the backdoor of Unmistakable is what initially drew me into this fucking album, with that gorgeously rolling, menacing boo-bee-boo-boo. This song feels like when the beat finally dropped in LCD Soundsystem's "Dance Yrslf Clean, but for the entire fucking song. It's refreshing in a way that no other song has been in 2015 for me. I've heard this song in my fucking dreams between strikes of the snooze button. I've secretly played air guitar to a room full of strangers for nothing more than a split second to the oddly perfect syncopated bleeyoops and blooyips (those are hammer-on's and pull-off's for the snobs bro). I've hammered out those occasional reverby desk slaps in this song while wearing headphones in a room full of sleeping children, caring naught about their current state of nappy naps.

Unmistakable is my favorite song of the year so far. When 3:55 rolls around and everything just COMES. BACK. IN. I'm fucking putty bro. I'm bro putty. I'm a lumpy pile of shit when this shit hits. It's like, I wanna tell In Tall Buildings how fucking balls this song is, but I really can't afford another restraining order.

Flare Gun is the other holy fucking shit song on Driver. Pairing that easy goingly complex guitar-pick-out with the non-cheesy futuristic synth, I swear to jesus balls this song is the Baymax of music right now. It's the most soft on the outside, huge ass microprocessors on the inside type shit I've ever heard. It's like wearing a new Carhartt jacket and Google Glass at the same time, but it's not impossible to break in and it doesn't make you look completely ridiculous. The first dozen times I played Flare Gun while driving I played the air-egg-shaped-maraca and gave no fucks what it looked like I was doing as I sat in traff. It's gorgeous.

I'll Be Up Soon is another In Tall Buildings track that could sum up the entire Driver album if need be. That lilt just lets your head flail in the most comfortable of flails. It's almost like the back-stroke on his guitar strumming is what's driving the rhythm of the song and it's fascinating. The guitar's balls on this song are so fucking huge because of all the restraint this dude is using not JUST MELTING ALL THE FACES. If I was recording guitar on this song there is no fucking way you would hear anything but all of the face melting. This is a goddamned gem of a pocket and I would have no problem being completely selfish and just SOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOING until you unplugged me.

That might be one of the biggest compliments that anyone can offer a musician in that "if I were in your band, I would have many boner while performing your song" sort of way.

Just sent In Tall Buildings a snapchat bros. #bitesbottomlip

I would advise you to purchase Driver as soon as possible so that you too can experience the acoustic electricity this motherfucker delivers, but maybe after you've listened to the album you can start understanding the language I'm speaking here. But even if you never understand what I've written here, know I love this fucking album and you should buy it.