★★
Ducktails is what happens when you let Matt Mondanile of Real Estate push their characteristic summer jams into eerie, experimental territory.
The most conventionally structured of his side project’s albums, St. Catherine loses the melodic intrigue that distinguished the band’s earlier psychedelic pop in favour of lush sound production. While the synths are still hazy and the vocals are prettily nostalgic, their moments do little to encourage more than ennui.
It’s an album that builds on the legacy that Mondanile started when he was first recording tracks in his basement. He has fine-tuned the rawness of previous albums with much cleaner, trickling guitar loops and softer drums. For songs like ‘Headbanging In The Mirror’ it helps to add a fullness to Ducktails’ signature sound, and shows off the complex arrangements that they play around with.
Other times, not so much. Tracks like the lacklustre ‘Heaven’s Room’ are as avoidable as the songs’ desperate protagonist because there’s no energy behind the words. The chords have been neutered, which means the potentially heartfelt tracks will be forgotten along with the rest of this lukewarm pop.
St. Catherine is clearly a more evolved piece of production, but it leaves you wanting something with a bit more soul.
