Whatever else can be said about
Too Beautiful to Work, it's clearly a demonstration that the trend toward mini-pocket orchestras and detailed arrangements in whatever indie rock is supposed to be sometimes can turn out mesmerizing results. Instead of the far too typical drama production singalongs,
the Luyas are somewhere else again -- maybe a blend of whatever space age pop became codified as in the wake of
Stereolab and cocktails with their own ear for what a hook can be. (That
Owen Pallett contributes to the arrangements seems only apt, given a similar drive toward the lush without being simply interested in re-creating the past too perfectly.) Jessie Stein's vocals, sometimes sweetly singsong and sometimes swoopingly strange, provide less of a central hook than might be guessed. If the album isn't shoegaze either, there's a similar appreciation of the possibilities of sinking into sound, where everything can be an instrument depending on the moment -- thus there are songs like "Worth Mentioning," "Moodslayer," and "Spherical Mattress" (the latter having one of the best titles around, suggesting something as bouncy as its arrangement). Elsewhere, slightly more straightforward songs like the skeletal feel of "Canary" and the skittering "Cold Canada," centered around a one-note loop even when looming banks of strings and sound fill in the background, keep each song from ever being quite like the song before it -- even while a general feel of the band as a whole continues through to the concluding "Seeing Things." Leave that song to wrap everything up on an almost 1968 Top 40 sunshine pop swing too -- at least, almost. ~ Ned Raggett