Department of Eagles – The Whitey on the Moon UK LP

Department of Eagles
The Whitey on the Moon UK LP

Oh sweet Jesus, what a fucking department this be! The most fuckingest. I would say that Department of Eagles has made a record of transcendent beauty, were that true. It is not true. It has made a pleasant record of surprising grace, however. The Whitey on the Moon UK LP, the band’s first full-length after a few singles under the group name Whitey on the Moon, is a passel full of atmospheric, sample-happy pop that occasionally resembles folks like Air, the Avalanches, and the Pizzicato Five. It definitely serves some sort of purpose, for real.

The Dept. has got some of that Beck-esque eclecticism that is so prevalent in this confounding musical culture of the present today. Listening to this record, I can’t tell what’s a live band, what’s a sample, what’s a computer, or what’s just my tinnitus. But I don’t care how music is made, I just care what it sounds like. And how does Department of Eagles sound? Pretty okay, for the most part. Nothing amazing. Nothing you’d get pissed about not having with you if you forgot to put it in your briefcase before work. Nothing you’d really want to work to listen to, or anything. But nothing bad, or offensive, really, and nothing you’d be ashamed to listen to. Well, almost nothing. And that applies to everything that has gone before, or at least in these last few sentences. The Whitey on the Moon UK LP ain’t nothing, but it ain’t much of something, no-how. What the fuck am I saying? [We're not sure - ed.]

So there are what they would call songs on this record, if they who would call them that could do so. And they can. With authority. Yes, these are songs, most assuredly. Many of them, if you consider 13 to be many. I might. I’ll get back to you on that. Some of the songs are quite good, though. Opening thing “On Glaze” is some delayed guitar and/or keyboards atop a propulsive bass throb that gradually oozes into a dancy concoction of strings and drums and wordless vocal what-nots. “Sailing by Night” is a nice Kings of Convenience number with looped percussion, and “Romo-Goth” is Interpol on five bucks a day. On “Family Romance,” the Department proves itself confident (and competent) in its classic pop craftsmanship. And although there’s absolutely nothing else to recommend “We Have to Respect Each Other,” any piece that samples Shooby Taylor warrants a few musical brownie points.

But with the resolute good comes the righteous anti-good, like Dickie Betts coasting in on Duane and Greg’s name and talent and primo facial hair. Much of this is boring trip-hop or rudimentary techno-influenced dance crap. Elsewhere, the (completely non-experimental) predilection toward experimentalism leads to severe awkwardness. The horrible Streets homage “Forty Dollar Rug” is frightening in its abject futility, until it abruptly morphs into a non-sequitur prog finale that slightly salvages the enterprise. The jumpy hodgepodge of “The Curious Butterfly Realizes He is Beautiful” consists of about five different ideas that simply don’t work together, and the Wes Anderson sample feels like base hipster pandering. Other moments are questionable as well. So many questions, prowling heavily upon our unblemished mind, and primary among them the simple, elegant, and classic why?

You should learn to appreciate what is fine and dismiss or ignore the objectively somewhat less than fine. The latter comprises some of The Whitey on the Moon UK LP but in no means makes up a majority. The good time, lafforama, absolute chortle riots you’ll experience won’t predominate either, but they just might make a plurality, and that’s a shot worth taking, mister. C’mon, what the hell else are you going to do? Something else entirely? Is that even an option? It is? Are you sure?