Windmill – Epcot Starfields – Album Review

I’m gonna go out on a limb and predict that nearly every other review you read concerning Windmill’s recent follow-up to its debut album, 2007’s Puddle City Racing Lights, will spend significant energy on the relationship between the album and Matthew Thomas Dillon’s childhood trip to Walt Disney World’s Epcot Center. The reason for this is more because that’s what the easy hook the press release gives us and it is a whole lot easier to crib from the press kit than to listen to an album over and over again, thinking through lyrics and seeking deeper meaning.

Of course, the Epcot reference isn’t completely unimportant. After all, the iconic theme park does get the titular reference on the album for a reason and Dillon’s songwriting is imbued with themes also shared with the original Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow concept that old Walt was so taken with in his waning days. Moreover, the album art (see above) does present a partial visual homage to the unforgetable visage of the Epcot Center’s physical presence.

However, this album is a lot more than simple sonic flashbacks, and limiting our critical reception of it to half-baked childhood vacation references is worse than lazy; it would give you, the listener, an incomplete picture of what you are in for when you press play.

To be somewhat more direct and descriptive, what you are in for is a wonderful yet imperfect album of mirthful quirk and beauty, with a little robo-action thrown in for good measure. One could be tempted to call this a concept album, and perhaps that temptation is sound, given the shared themes of technology, change, love, and often loss that characterize each of these songs. In fact, as I type this, I’m pretty confident that the concept album descriptor is apt, though this album strikes me as less of a linear narrative than the albums we usually think of as conceptually driven tend to be.

On the album, Dillon – along with key contributors like James Drohan, Tommy Heap, and Helen Page – is consistently at his best when the songs involve fuller, more frenetic arrangements. On those songs, Windmill is doing as interesting work as any other major chord indie pop band working today. Dillon’s vocals are fundamentally polarizing, yet also key to the band’s overall sound. His singing is unique, filled with adolescent voice-cracking and reminiscent of a young, Tripping Daisy-era Tim DeLaughter, though at some moments I think instead of Gene Ween and at still others I recall Jad Fair.

For the record, I love Dillon’s voice, though I should probably have prefaced that declaration with full disclosure of the fact that my favorite male vocalists are gents like Daniel Johnston, Jason Lytle, Wayne Coyne, and the aforementioned frontman of The Polyphonic Spree. If, however, unlike me you don’t go in for fragility crossed with goofy warble, Dillon may not be the vocalist for you, especially on the simpler, singer-songwriterish tracks, where the effect can be similar to what you’d expect from a Kimya Dawson under-study, or perhaps a film score written by a man who thinks Michael Cera is the best actor ever to take the stage or grace the celluloid.  I should stress, though, that as casually critical as that description may sound, it really is not meant to be interpreted that way. Many people dig the Juno soundtrack, for example, and for good reason, and in Dillon’s defense, he possesses a stylistic range far more diverse than Ms. Dawson. Furthermore, these possibly borderline negative comments only concern the slow and simple tracks, and such songs are in the minority on Epcot Starfields.

The album begins with two of the more memorable songs on the entire record. Opener “Airsuit” is one of the more simple tracks on Epcot Starfields, with Dillon’s singing supported primarily by piano, with occasional string work and odd-ball sample thrown in, along with a co-singer to join him in the catchy chorus (“Rise up in your arms/I track my fall/and borrow the crackle from your glow”). “Airsuit” is followed by “Big Boom,” the album’s first single and just a wonderfully intoxicating and addictive song filled with weird and messy overdubs and peppered with anthemic choruses – by far my favorite song on the album and a very rare great choice for lead single. The video for this song is even better (see below) – and check out an interesting Q&A with its director, Rupert Noble, posted by IFC.com here.

http://www.vimeo.com/5938624

For the remainder of the album, Windmill consistently provides two things: catchy choruses and brilliantly conceived sonic add-ons. By the latter, I mean the little (and sometimes not-so-little) extras that Dillon adds into the mix, transforming an otherwise relatively straight-forward pop song into something far more magical and meaningful. For example, “IMAX Raceway” would just be another song if it wasn’t for the eccentric church choir background singers and the strange kiddie-techno monstrous fade-out (monstrous in vibe, rather than size). Further, the ending fade out for the entire album, in closer “Spaceship Earth” is genius, as Dillon repeats “Let me stand still for a minute” more than a dozen times, each time pronounced differently and increasingly demure and damaged until the tape runs out. As for the catchy choruses, witness “Ellen Save Our Energy” (“We hope to get boyfriends/ and girlfriends/so here/here we go”) and “Epcot Slow” (“Walter/are we ready to leave/I failed her the first time/I’m afraid her fame will take her away from me”).

Beyond these two chorus and add-on characteristics, the strongest general impression I’m left with after a couple of weeks and one long international road trip of listening is that Windmill is an entity still in a state of evolution, and a rather early stage at that. On one hand, this speaks remarkably well for Dillon’s future, as he’s already at a pretty impressive position, all things considered. On the other hand (and there is always an other hand), there are more than a few moments on Epcot Starfields where it seems like Dillon is still feeling about in a dark room for his signature style. I think he has the vocals down, but some songs sound so different, like completely different backing bands were brought in and only the singer stayed the same, and do so in a way that shouts uncertainty far more than it suggests diversity. “Shuttle,” for example, sounds like it was recorded after Dillon came home from a Frightened Rabbit show or perhaps after a repeat viewing of Once, that film with the dude from The Frames and the gorgeous and timid Czech gal. The very next song on the album, “Sony Metropolis Stars,” is as compelling as it is completely different. (I should note that the responsibilities for the lead vocals fall to someone different on this track, and I love how they sound when Dillon comes in on the chorus.)

The lyrics at time reflect a parallel need to grow. There are countless moments of brilliance on the record, to many to begin citing here, but there is also a nagging trend for Dillon to revert to juvenile themes (exhibit #1 being the hope for one’s parents to never die in “Epcot Slow”) and to go superficial when depth is in order (see “Photo Hemisphere” and the surprisingly shallow meditation on such a mega-theme like planetary doom). As it is, I think Epcot Starfields would, in addition to your own record collection, make for a fantastic gift to that precocious 6th grader you know transitioning from Star Trek fandom to a budding hipsterdom. This is not an insult – we all had someone older and cooler give us copies of albums that became seminal in our introduction to the broader world of cool indie rock out there. This album could be just that ticket for someone younger and still to find that initial step on the path of great music discovery.

In the end, Epcot Starfields as an album is an archeological artifact of a particular and early moment in Windmill’s promising development. There is still a way to go, in terms of both sound and story, but I look forward to revisiting Dillon’s progress at each and every step from here to there.

Windmill’s sophomore contribution, Epcot Starfields, comes out September 15th on Friendly Fire Recordings, a label quickly becoming a new favorite of mine thanks not only to this record but also work with groups like Asobi Seksu and The Phenomenal Handclap Band. Pre-order Epcot Starfields now by clicking here or wait until next week and pick it up at your favorite neighborhood indie record shop. If they don’t have it in stock, demand they order it in and then, before leaving in mock disgust, give them that disdainful glance of appraisal that usually only they are able to give to us mere consumers. You know the look I’m talking about.

Windmill – Big Boom