Ordinary Riches

Company Of Thieves Review (4/5)

Debut albums are rarely the work of a band that has found their sound.

Often times, debut records sound like a mishmash of ideas that music nerds love about other bands and have painstakingly placed into their own songs. This results in a very uneven experience, one that even the greatest bands have succumbed to. The Beatles didn’t start breaking away from traditional blues licks until “Help!,” the first three Electric Light Orchestra records are largely ignored, and U2 didn’t really begin to flourish until 1987’s “The Joshua Tree.”

However, Company of Thieves happily defies this trend of messy debuts, achieving something even the Beatles could not do on their first LP.

“Ordinary Riches” is twelve concise tracks of immersive drumming, shape shifting guitar work and Genevieve Schatz’s commanding voice. Carefully balancing a mix of soft jazz and bluesy undertones, “Ordinary Riches” mines past musical archetypes but maintains an incredibly modern feel. This is evident on the internet smash “Oscar Wilde,” a track that revels in Marc Walloch’s climbing and twisting guitar lines that plateau with pristine apexes. Elsewhere, Mike Ortiz’s precise backbeat holds the group together as Walloch’s dreamy distortion and Schatz’s entrancing voice provide an almost sultry swagger to the song.

While there is a temptation for young bands to show off how remarkable their playing is, this mentality can clutter up the songs. Rather than following suit, Company of Thieves is smart enough to let the atmosphere build within these tracks, playing to what the songs need as opposed to impressing listeners. “Old Letters” opens with lumbering bass, swaying strings and cumbersome piano as Schatz’s whispered vocals cut through the air. Additionally, Walloch’s shimmering-to-overdriven lead work rounds out the track nicely as the song maintains a brooding sense of claustrophobia throughout its running time.

It’s not all horror movies and nightmares, but Company of Thieves excels at creating soundscapes that pull listeners in rather than act like background noise.

Yet the truly fascinating aspect of “Ordinary Riches” is how well the band seems to gel as a unit. Most contemporary bands are vehicles for a lead guitarist or an overrated singer, with the rest of the group merely there to fill their own instrumental roles. On “Ordinary Riches,” each member is recognizable as they add some of their personality to each of these songs. Whether its Schatz’s saucy delivery on “In Passing,” to Walloch and Ortiz’s stuttering rhythms on “Pressure,” each band member sounds like they have a voice in these arrangements.

Still, this is far from a flash in the pan, one-hit-wonder album that people forget about in a year. “Ordinary Riches” has teeth to it, a record that seems to lament on impermanence and frailty rather than a mere collection of sappy, Top 40 tailored, love songs.

“Even In The Dark” finds Schatz pondering how life continues to move when we don’t seem to see it, “Gotta listen to the laughter/Everyone must be heard/Now/Even in the dark…” Against a wall of soft acoustic strumming and a shuffling beat, Company of Thieves explores something far more poignant and interesting rather than the simple “love song by numbers” formula that dominates today’s radio.

But perhaps the group’s biggest strength is its authenticity. None of the songs on “Ordinary Riches” seem forced and derivative. Company of Thieves’ song craft is tightly refined, adding an organic quality to these tracks rather than having them feel like a monotonous workout. At the end of the day, good song craft means songs are not looked at as the sum of their parts, and Company of Thieves is incredibly talented at keeping their music spontaneous rather than methodical.

For this, look no further than pulsing bass and rich blues stomp of “Under The Umbrella.” Instead of filling the track with bludgeoning southern rock riffs, Walloch experiments with his ever changing guitar tones, which are echoing one moment and gritty the next. The song ascends on Schatz’s airy vocals, climbing until Walloch unleashes a searing wah-soaked solo that rides confidently until the track’s end.

“Ordinary Riches” will remind listeners of a time before music had to be fed through Pro Tools and processed to death. Company of Thieves relies on their ear for musical tension rather than their need to pen a cross over hit, allowing their songs to charm listeners instead of spoon feeding them.

Simply put, this is an album that succeeds because of its disciplined playing instead of its flashy construction.

“Ordinary Riches” urges its audience to remember when music took them places instead of being served to them in some sort of iTunes playlist. It displays a side of modern rock that is ethereal, evocative and nostalgic, while never really cornering itself into a restrictive and empty genre.

And to think, all of this came from a couple of rookies.

/ By Michael DiGrande