Download: Frankel “Anonymity Is The New Fame”

(from Anonymity Is The New Fame out now on Autumn Tone)

Anonymity is the New Fame is the type of album that’s easy to listen to but hard to love. Bedroom pop like this tends to swing from sunny daydreaming of the world outside the window to four-walls-and-ceiling Brian Wilson-esque introspection. Michael Orendy, the main man behind Frankel deserves credit for getting this right. The opening lines of the album speak of tying roses to a satellite to watch the petals scatter in the sky; he then changes gears to sing how he wants to avoid modern life’s trappings and grow up to be himself. Internet comparisons to contemporaries like Richard Swift and oldies like Harry Nilsson abound, but those seem off-base. Earlimart’s latest albums—and their borrowed sonics from indie faves like Grandaddy and Sparklehorse—might be a better reference point. (Apparently, Orendy even plays bass for Earlimart on tour). Frankel compositions are warm fuzzy songs on which Orendy double tracks his hazy vocals invitingly enough. The meticulous detail in tone and atmosphere is admirable. The lyrics, meanwhile, are mostly as cold and vacuous as the black hole he yearns to lay low in on “Faux Science.” Images like these pass like cars by a pedestrian—there and then they go. That’s the weakness here: there are no surprises, lyrically or musically. Some well-placed vocal harmonies rise above the musical textures especially in the title track, but fangless feedback and keyboard fills only take up space. Anonymity becomes too familiar, too genre-bound; later songs begin to inhabit a similar tempo and feel, especially once the piano gets replaced by the guitar. There is still a definably Los Angeles sound in this album, and Orendy shows a lot of promise on his sophomore Frankel effort—but he needs to show some bite, too.

—Greg Garabedian