"Until tomorrow," the Polyphonic Spree once promised, though tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow have crept by at a sure 'nuff petty pace in the two years since. It's been almost as long since the success of Harry G. Frankfurt's On Bullshit inspired me to write my opus On Procrastination, and I don't need to tell you how that turned out. About three months ago, I was supposed to review The Fragile Army, the yet-unreleased third album by Tim DeLaughter and his newly de-robed 23-person backing cult; that was delayed and now instead, the Spree's aptly titled iTunes-only Wait EP finds the group trammeling their grandiose sound on two new songs and three ambitious covers. Aw hell, I'll give 'em an extension.
Besides, the Spree have clearly been doing their homework during the interim. No longer is every instrument playing at once, as on 2003 debut The Beginning Stages, nor must we withstand the neo-hippie theatricality of 2004's Together We're Heavy. Sure, the Wait EP's fresh compositions still worship the sun, but they're particularly reverent toward big, manipulative pop hooks. "I'm on my way," DeLaughter declares confidently on "Mental Cabaret", as alt-rock guitars, crisp piano, and disco hi-hat battle the post-Flaming Lips synth robots. "I'm Calling" follows Wayne Coyne & co. further into drippy MOR territory, though its harmony-upholstered chorus-- "If I can't make it, I'll make it out"-- renders the Lips' recent "Mr. Ambulance Driver" an even bigger carwreck by comparison. While ostensibly selling us on love, these songs will just as appropriately hawk mp3 players or buddy comedies, and fair play, but still.
More interesting, and occasionally wtf-worthy, are the covers, two of which are produced by celebrated Los Angeles composer Jon Brion. The Largo regular who broadened Fiona Apple's smoky expanses does his part here to restrain the Spree's past extreme more-is-betterness. In a lush but straightforward rendition, the weirdly messianic vision of love depicted in the Psychedelic Furs' Wedding Singer jam "Love My Way" proves a natural thematic match for the Spree's "new religion." Brion guides again as the Spree stride blithely through Nirvana's "Lithium". Accepting Kurt Cobain's "I'm so happy" near face value, the Spree exacerbate his song's subversive bipolarity, burying his angst beneath glassy-eyed choir vocals, tinkling keys, and triumphal horns. Yeahy yeahy uh yeah.
A third cover, "Sonic Bloom", best illustrates both where the Spree have been and where they may be headed on their forthcoming album. Here DeLaughter (producing with wife/bandmate Julie Doyle as the Speekers) reimagines a song from 1998's Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb by his prior band, Tripping Daisy, festooning the original's romantic surge with Sgt. Pepper's strings, horns, and his choir's swaying, love-giddy response: "I do." It makes me hope the wait will be worthwhile, even if DeLaughter's songwriting these days is rarely so pure and cathartic. "Something is coming, but softly," he observes on "Mental Cabaret". My editor just heard the same ploy.
