I've been pondering this for a while. I've struggled, and yet persisted, with Beirut. As already well-catalogued, I find Gulag Orkestar to be a bit obvious. Part of my irritation with this is because it's like being struck across the head with a big "LOOK! It's DIFFERENT" hammer - I won't traverse old ground, but the Eastern influence is clear (too clear), and I really do wonder how necessary it was to opt for song names like "Bratislava" and "Postcards from Italy" and "Rhineland". I love different sounds and influences from various interesting places but.... well, give the listener some intellectual credit. So, I've struggled with the obviousness of it all from day one, but recently have found myself listening to the album more and more. Perhaps controversially, I blame / credit Fleet Foxes - another band I initially struggled with, and now can't imagine living without. (Currently listening to their Sun Giant EP (2008) which is love at first listen.)
I don't resile from my original comments that I find Gulag Orkestar a condescending album. I still find it to be exactly that, but I've recently found it to be much more listenable - in fact the first five or six tracks have been on my ipod pretty much non-stop recently. I still occasionally find it irritatingly blunt, but as I think I said initially, regardless of whether it offends some wanky intellectual sensibility me, the sound is actually very good. I have persisted with Beirut for longer than any other band I can think of, and it's beginning to pay off. Like lots of things in life, sometimes the most rewarding bands are those we have to work really hard to love.
Subsequent to my recent Beirut revival, a friend recommended I try the second album, The Flying Club Cup. Said friend appears to have generally very good taste in important things, like life and music, so I took the advice and tried it. And I listened to it twice in a row. Each time I was struck by 'Guyamas Sonara', a song no less caucophonous than many Gulag tracks - plenty of mournful horns, interesting cymbals and bells, and Condon's quite lovely voice - but somehow more subtle, more distinct, more unique. It's followed by 'Le Banlieue', which concludes with some truly stunning piano - which struck me as a new and mature element to the Beirut sound - and 'Cliquot', which returns to the polka influenced oom-pah-pah style of Gulag Orkestar, but has toned it down into a more Mediterranean feel. And it's actually a really good song.
It may be that I'm just more used to the Beirut sound, so this album takes me less by surprise. But I actually think it is generally a more subtle, mature album - proving, I think, that it's possible to draw in elements and influences from all over the world, but that you don't need to bash your listener with them. I'm not sure that I'd describe this as a more accessible album - in fact I think the accessibility of Gulag Orkestar is its major downfall - but it is a gentler, more subtle listen. It seems to allow more space for his impressive and dinstinctive vocals (once again I can't help but draw a comparison with David Byrne here - for lots of reasons, but mostly because they're vocally so similar.)
It wasn't until I'd reached the conclusion of the album and my itunes automatically switched over to the next album (Gulag) that I realised the major difference is that this is a much more relaxed album. Where Gulag is uptight and trying to prove something, this is calm, collected, not over-thought, more mature in its treatment. This is not to suggest there's less complexity to the sound - I actually think there's more - but the songs are better arranged, allowing more space for various subtle elements to complement each other. To poach a line from a review: "It's the sound of Condon and his band shedding its layers of self-packed cultural baggage."
I already knew what a Polish polka sounded like. But now I finally feel like I know what this intricate and clever band called Beirut sounds like too.
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