It has been a long time since Other Lives released Rituals back in 2015. A lot has changed, but what has remained the same is the band’s use of large swelling sounds and all-encompassing orchestral pop on their newest album For Their Love.
The trio of Jesse Tabish (piano, guitar, lead vocals), Jonathon Mooney (piano, violin, guitar, percussion, trumpet) and Josh Onstott (bass, keys, percussion, guitar and b/vocals) started in Oklahoma, however, the new album was self-recorded and used Tabish’s A-Frame home in the Oregon Mountains as a backdrop and inspiration. Themes of escapism, love and loss are sung around huge supporting sounds.
Partnering with drummer Dany Reich and Kim Tabish on backing vocals the group keeps layering sounds and instrumentation on every tune. The phrase dramatic can describe every track as tensions build at various places and paces throughout the record. Opener “Sounds of Violence” is slow and ominous while “Nites Out” begins with a maelstrom of strings and harpsichords delivering harrowing madness as it nervously rises into a motoring panic attack.
The backup choir-like vocals and strings are primary instruments here, becoming the focal points on tunes such as the pressure laced “Lost Day” and album closer “Sideways”. Other Lives never scales back the theatrics, and it works wonders on the spaghetti western tinged galloping of “We Wait” as well as the huge in scope (pure cinematic intro, before morphing into indie rock with a bumping bass line) mashup of “All Eyes – For Your Love”.
However, that sense of pushing drama to its zenith backfires on the more delicate “Dead Language” which comes off pompous and the overloaded “Whose Gonna Love Us?” which feels cluttered and stagnant with its eastern strings. When the group keeps it fairly straight-ahead such as on the late-night slick rocking of “Hey Hey I’ and the echoing off of every surface while droning with power underneath of “Cops”, the group still delivers the goods.
Shooting for the sweet spot of artists like Radiohead and The National, Other Lives embraces their tense, dramatic, theatrical, orchestral sound, and scope on For Their Love.
