By Emily Griesenbeck, Staff writer
Relaxed. That’s how I would describe Alt-j’s new album, This is all Yours. It’s like going from 100 to 0. Alt-j’s first album, An Awesome Wave, was just that– an awesome wave of instruments and vocals, all thrown down at once, like a wave crashing against the sand. It was everything from weird noises and chaotic instrumental backgrounds (Fitzpleasure, specifically) to fifty-three seconds of soft, cooing voices (Interlude 3, anyone?).
This is all Yours brings a different element to the table. Their second album is like An Awesome Wave, but after their neighbors asked them to turn the music down. It’s calmer and doesn’t have as many explosions of sound thrown into generally relaxing songs. As I listened to it, all I could think about was things in slow motion because, overall, the album is a lot slower and smoother than their first album. It did, however, include much of the indecipherable English that so frequently appeared in their first album. Much of This is all Yours was easily identifiable with the style of Alt-j, but many of their songs were also songs that you would assume a yoga instructor would play during final relaxation.
Although I felt that this was a more mature and toned down version of the Alt-j that I know, I liked it. As I lay in my bed, headphones in, listening to the album, I felt as if I were falling, slowly, so incredibly slowly, through the air for an infinite distance. Not to mention their sixteen minute song, Leaving Nara–that went by pretty slowly.