Elf Power’s eighth album finds the band veering off in a far more folky direction than on past efforts. Back to the Web is especially striking in contrast to its predecessor, 2004’s guitar-centered rocker, Walking With the Beggar Boys. About the only song that matches that album’s vibe is the glam styled “All the World is Waiting.” The change in sound isn’t exactly jarring though. As soon as Andrew Rieger starts to sing there’s no mistaking these songs for anything but Elf Power. Rather than the fuzzed out psych rock of their previous work, this is more of a jangly folk-psych rock. Electric guitars are subdued bordering on absent for most of the tracks. Instead songs are acoustic based, with prominent strings and clarinet weaving together with drones to produce exotic and often dark sounding textures. New drummer Josh Lott, an excellent addition, inventively drives the songs forward and anchors them firmly in rock territory.
Standouts on this solid album include the pounding, string drenched “An Old Familiar Scene,” whose sinister bassline after the bridge adds an especially wicked touch. The little three note clarinet riff on the upbeat “Peel Back the Moon, Beware!” helps make the song especially memorable. “23rd Dream” is elegantly folky, featuring banjo and mandolin. “Somewhere Down the River” kicks off with the psychedelic flourish of droning Indian flavor over murky dialog before segueing into jangly Elf Powered rock. And as mentioned above, “All the World is Waiting” reflects the band’s enthusiasm for T. Rex.
You can stream a few tracks from Back to the Web on the Elf Power MySpace page or download the whole thing from eMusic.
[...] The first set is pretty cool too. They give a nice sampling of their catalog, with a song or two from each of their albums except for their debut, Vainly Clutching at Phantom Limbs. (That’s the only one I haven’t heard, incidentally. I’m still hoping for a reissue that lands on eMusic some day.) The band sounds like they’re having a fine time as they run through some of their best material. “The Separating Fault” and “Skeleton” are particularly strong. But the real standout for me is the jangly, slightly faster version of “All the World Is Waiting” from their most recent album, Back to the Web. It loses most of its glam swagger but the scrappy, stripped down translation calls attention to just how good a song it is. [...]