Ganglians - Still Living (2011) [Lefse] // Grade: A

Unlike some of their brethren, Ganglians chose not to hit “reply all” when it came time to send their next message. Two long years have passed since the group’s simultaneous full-length release pairing of the delightfully lo-fi lethargic Ganglians and Monster Head Room dropped and it’s this, their double-LP release for Lefse, that proves the band can indeed hold their own in a new land of enhanced production where Technicolor replaces a former sepia tone as what’s shown on the output screen. There’s no denying it, so flat out, know that this is the Sacramento band’s best, most exciting content yet. Led by Ryan Grubbs, the group explores, and very soon succeeds, at stepping outside the box to capture a sound that’s more concerned with distance covered than space immediately gained.

Something grand, the 12-track Still Living, finds this quartet developed in a way that fans could’ve only hoped for a year earlier. If you would, flash back to 2009 when the band first released material.  All with defining releases that year, bubbling up where the likes of Girls, Ty Segall and Wavves. Combining grimy punk attitude and vintage West Coast pop sensibility quickly garnered a collective “Yes please” excitement from those with taste to make. The underground scene flourished with tiny imprints and handmade releases and soon bedroom bands were plugging in on stages in front of thousands.  On their playlists were Dick Dale guitar riffs, sun-soaked harmony and hazy frames. It was obvious that the 1960s were here to trump the 1980s as our decade of buzz-friendly “borrowed nostalgia” (to quote that one seminal 2002 crank-out, “Losing My Edge”). Part of the bunch were Ganglians who were then releasing for Woodsist and Captured Tracks. The music felt different, showcasing a group of then-teenagers deciding to acknowledge the eclectic side of all things comfy.

Though newcomers, they didn’t seem too keen to grab a hold of the coattails flapping in front of them. After their 8.1 glisten on Pitchfork for Monster Head Room, the band’s hype reared and soon checkbooks and bookers wanted the youngster quartet. European dates and support offers from the likes of Florence and the Machine rolled in and it’s in this environment — the band needing a follow-up — that Still Living was formed.  A slow process, the band, then broke, shifted production duties to Dirty Projectors (Bitte Orca) collaborator Robby Moncrieff and began hunkering down.  The hour-long results prove layered, floral and surprisingly complex for a band so young and desperate; though it took years, this is exactly the album Ganglians needed to make.

A fantastic release, Still Living succeeds by way of exploring the confines of their already-diverse sound, the scene it’s harvested from and the cues from its established acts.  Though a lot is tossed into the pot, what comes out after the heat is off is perfectly digestible. With each track-passing the list grows longer but get ready for The Beach Boys/Brian Wilson solo, Beach House, Fleet Foxes, Animal Collective, Scott Walker, The Chills and Modest Mouse. An indie crash course maybe, it’s these band’s shades, not their entire spectrum, that Still Living occupies.

An hour long, the record doesn’t drag, idle or bore. Again, as in Monster Head Room, the band utilizes samples throughout.  Aiding to some greater theatrical arc that I’m still finessing are ocean noises, traffic, footsteps and car alarms (“Jungle’s” alarm-buzzing close rules). Visually, Still Living evokes much the same:  wooded canopies, beardo freedom and West Coast essence all matched to big hooks, heavy grooves and spooky, rain-soaked paranoia. The music encompasses a wealth of feeling from organic states but it’s the threat of something like dehydration overcoming even the most pastoral of sites that keeps the record away from ever getting too “hippie.”

The album opens with “Call Me” and singer Ryan Grubbs’ assertion that though they may have come from the spunk of 2009 land, Ganglians’ return is anything but spunky:  “This is a sad, sad song for all you sad, sad people.” Sad for some might also be these “dirty teens” and their unemployment status, which Grubbs tackles on “Good Times” with the assertion, “Waking up in the afternoon, can’t find a job, what’s the use in trying?” The record starts comfortably with shiny pop bouncers like “Evil Weave” and “That’s What I Want” but it’s the nocturnal picnic of “Sleep” where the record starts to get casually and suspiciously serious.  The band have produced a wealth of memorable moments to dissect: “Jungle” will make any Fleet Foxes fan roll to attention; Anyone can get the gloom of a West Coast June morning on “California Cousins;” “Bradley” is a woozy winder of harmony and hazy guitar until its out-of-nowhere coda hits and backed by bass-y throats to the key of Peter Gabriel’s “Sledeghammer,” the  ballad “Things to Know,” might as well come from a different band entirely.

Still Living is a triumph for a scene that some still can’t quite dig out the greater benefits from. Though its depth, complexity and paranoid wander are found throughout, what makes these 12 songs worth an hour under headphones is the way it manages to intercut what you expect and what you don’t from a  band like this and the scene they’re already lobbed in. Grubb’s lyrics, “I got no self-control” help, but what happens at the two-minute mark of “The Toad” is more of what I am getting at as summation. In what could be called Still Living’s longest two minutes, the tune’s first half oozes with sundry, steady and impassioned pop swirl before, in a gobsmacking change of tone, the band nosedive into a defining synth throb lifted right from the pages of kraut to further layer an already weighted track. It’s a brilliant moment to say the least.

- The Holloweyed