Elphaba is a noisy band that at times is reminiscent of the sound of The Blood Brothers mixed with No Kill No Beep Beep-era Q and Not U. Upon first listen, their album, Any Land But This, is a very difficult record to digest. But, repeated listening showed the album to have several interesting qualities.
"Long Decay Slow Delay" not only opens the record but it also immediately brings to mind The Blood Brothers comparison, especially the vocal arrangement. Musically, the first two songs, "Long Decay Slow Delay" and "Portrait of Hombre Malo," have a subtle DC-ish sound. They are angular sounding but nowhere near as dissonant as one would expect, probably due to the fact that Elphaba never turns their "amps to 11." This lack of loudness contributes to distancing themselves from being too alike The Blood Brothers. "Hip Hop Situation" is an excellent example of the mash of styles that were alluded to earlier. It has a similar rhythmic quality to that found throughout Q and Not U's first album. The vocals in "The Right Hand" are exceedingly dissonant and trade off of each other in a manner that one would expect given the comparisons. "Down the Food Tube" more closely resembles a song structure found on the Q and Not U side of the sound spectrum that Elphaba seem to reside. It is a pretty good song that I find myself enjoying the more that I hear it. The album seems to take an odd turn at track 7. Adding an overbearing distortion to the beginning of "Smoke Drugs" completely changes the aural motif that the band had been exploring for the first two thirds of the record. It is an instrumental that seems to meander in a haze through its development and then slowly disintegrates. The last two songs are very long compared to those found on the beginning of the record and seem to serve as a culmination or pulling together of the music that they plotted earlier.
Any Land But This may seem to have a derivative sound to it at first. However, in reality, Elphaba expand on the sonic spectrum that they pull from to create an album all their own. There is a clean aesthetic that the band portrays not only in their music and vocals but also in their artistic representation. It would be interesting to read the lyrics that are pretty much absent from the packaging, but from a design standpoint, Elphaba stays remarkably consistent by excluding them. This was a refreshing release to listen to once I left my preconceived notions at the door and just listened to the album.
