Elf Power: Creatures : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Elf Power is part of the Elephant 6 collective, a loose brotherhood of bands that often take pop in experimental directions. But the Athens, Georgia group's fifth long player (which features cameos by former members of the Olivia Tremor Control and the Glands) is its most straightforward, and its darkest. Frontman Andrew Rieger has matured significantly as a songwriter since he sang of a "bird with a candy bar head" -- his lyrics are still phantasmagoric, but his imagination lurks in eerier corners. Creatures opens with Rieger's philosophical musings on the flow of man and nature in "Let the Serpent Sleep," a sort of "Turn! Turn! Turn!" for the indie-pop generation nestled in chunky Velvet Underground power chords. Things get delightfully creepier from there, as shrieking birds, claw-bearing demons and voices in his head descend upon Rieger. Unlike previous albums, however, Elf Power uses instrumentation such as keyboard, lap steel and cello with greater economy on Creatures. On "The Modern Mind," for example, Laura Carter's gentle accordion and a waltz time signature set dreamscape lyrics adrift ("Creatures await you with stories untold/ rise from the water and head for your home) rather than weigh them down. This approach creates fewer distractions from Rieger's concise pop melodies, but it provides an atmosphere that's off-kilter enough for even a slack drumhead on the title track to add to the song's artistry.

MEREDITH OCHS
(May 23, 2002)