Light Pollution - Apparitions (Carpark)

The debut full length from Chicago’s Light Pollution is about sound construction more than it is about songs. They have managed to create something that makes the organic indistinguishable from the manufactured. Acoustic guitars ricochet off of synth lines that swallow echoed vocals. It’s an overwhelming first listen.

The vocals are very much of the voice-as-instrument technique. Sometimes this is done so effectively that it’s difficult to distinguish whether a note is coming from a human or a synthesizer, or if it’s a human vocal distorted by a synthesizer.

The winning formula for Light Pollution is a good energetic beat behind their ambient constructions, and a discernible refrain in front of them. This could be looked at as conforming to stiff song structure, but they suffer when they veer too far from structure. Because they work with sounds more than songs, this sometimes leads songs to wander down paths without direction. Isolated creations that are wonderful mingle with others that are less impressive.

The primary problem is that Light Pollution can’t do slow without going extremely slow. At such times their mastery of different tones is lost in the completely somnambulant swamp where even frontman Jim Cicero’s vocals drag at an intolerably slow pace. While the meandering ‘SsslowDreamsss’ is an exception highlighted by twisted vocals, at seven minutes it confirms that the band don’t do concise, and sometimes don’t do focused either. But when things are reigned in on the positively poppy ‘Oh, Ivory!’ or the contrast of frantic drum beat under the swells of synth waves on ‘Bad Vibes,’ it’s all so wonderfully exciting.