Let us rejoice! For alt-J hath finally bestowed a new album upon us!
This week brought us the release of This Is All Yours, which means an immediate feature on the Diagnosis before this highly-anticipated gem goes top 40 and becomes off limits to the WUSC airwaves for 4o years (that’s the year 2054…)
This Is All Yours is not a complete egress from alt-J’s 2012 release An Awesome Wave, but rather an exploration of an understated side of the band. While An Awesome Wave offered us power jam after anthemic ballad after power jam, This Is All Yours explores the band’s softer, more emotional side. To cite the obvious, An Awesome Wave was a wave of pure awesomeness, and This Is All Yours is a more personal statement of devotion.
Many of the signature alt-J traits are present on this album–tip-toeing piano riffs, crescendos and decrescendos playing on the voice as an instrument just like any other, teases of that gorgeous sitar and electronic bits that blend seamlessly with the acoustic parts. However, some elements are emphasized more on This Is All Yours–a greater use of string instruments, many of the lyrics are more discernible than they were on many previous tracks and a generally softer demeanor.
I had the pleasure of seeing alt-J perform live at The Fillmore in Charlotte last September, and while their performance was nothing short of fantastic, I could not help but be distracted by the overwhelming desire in the audience to record every single moment on their phones. I know this is a growing problem, but I had never seen it to this degree. My greatest hope with This Is All Yours is that listeners will be so enraptured by its balance of a now-emphasized delicacy with the signature alt-J sound, that in a live setting, they will have no choice but to put their phones down and just take it all in.
Tune in to the Diagnosis tonight on WUSC 90.5 FM at 10 p.m., or online at wusc.sc.edu to hear my selection of tracks from This Is All Yours as well as other new music.
