Local Natives: Hummingbird

Following the unexpected success of its debut album “Gorilla Manor” in 2010, the eclectic quartet of indie rockers known as the Local Natives have remained relatively vague up until now about their sophomore album “Hummingbird,” which the band streamed for free via iTunes.

I was reading Philip Cosores’ recent article about the band and the genesis of “Hummingbird.” One senses the glory that followed the success of “Gorilla Manor” was not only surprising and humbling, but also utterly ground-shifting. Caving under the pressure of pushing out “Hummingbird,” bassist and founding member Andy Hamm quit the band, a move that guitarist Ryan Hahn said “changed [the] writing process” and allowed the now-quartet to “experiment with different sounds.”

But “Hummingbird” can hardly qualify as an experiment, primarily given the fact that its 11 tracks are all so beautifully poised that they avoid the senseless noodling to which so many “experimental” tracks fall prey. It would be wrong to label the confident, emotionally titillating sound of “Hummingbird” as anything other than triumph.

Even so, “Hummingbird” isn’t a triumph in the sense of “Gorilla Manor.” Much of the reason the Local Natives’ first album was so wonderful was because it was permitted to indulge in the newness of its own emotions and sounds, regardless of whether or not they worked. The joy was not just in having the music. It was in discovering it.

“Hummingbird” is more careful than “Gorilla Manor” in developing it, bypassing most of the meandering, and this is partly why it is so successful. The album’s first track, “You & I,” immediately establishes the plaintive theme of fruitless search “to places we don’t know,” as a repeated lyric laments. Front man Taylor Rice, a melancholic type with sympathetic eyes and a Freddie Mercury mustache, bursts through with strong and confident vocals.

“You & I” is the strongest track, but not by much. “Colombia,” a part-dirge, part-anthem in memory of keyboardist’s Kelcey Ayer’s mother, balances the wistful refrain of “You & I” with a new, more powerful couplet: “Am I giving enough / Am I loving enough?” Rice’s voice pleads with vigor each time he sings the line, introducing a new, pained immediacy.

Between these two, the conceit expands, vocal depth is added with “Ceilings,” musical weight with the pair “Black Balloons” and “Wooly Mammoth” (akin to fellow indie/alternative superstars Arcade Fire) and a swell of emotional near-gratitude with “Black Spot.” Constipated emotional payoff, whether through the melodies or through the lyrics, is a constant theme of “Hummingbird” and one the listener sees mirrored on the track’s latter half.

I can’t neglect to mention the percussive and electronic “Breakers,” which sports a weird music video that looks like it belongs at Sundance. It’s the most fun track here, but it also serves the invaluable purpose of being the midpoint between the five-track emotional swells on either end of the album.  

Swells, hitting against the “breakers.” Pretty clever, huh?