Face Down in the Garden is an apt swan song for Denver indie pop duo Tennis. After fifteen years and nine studio albums together, married duo Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley announced the retirement of this project to focus on other endeavors. “It became clear that we had said everything we wanted to say, and achieved everything we wanted to achieve with our band,” they announced in their newsletter.
Recorded in their home studio, Face Down in the Garden is a fitting goodbye that highlights everything the band does well. The intricate guitar and keyboard melodies, sing-along choruses, jangly guitar licks, introspective lyrics, pop hooks, and wall-of-sound production are all in full force.
The entire album looks back at Moore and Riley’s time together, professionally and personally, with two songs referencing their wedding day. “At the Apartment” focuses on the anticipation before the ceremony. “At the apartment we lay on the floor dissecting every sound,” Moore sings in her soft, angelic voice. “But darling, do not linger, ‘cause the wedding’s in an hour.”
Riley’s bouncing bass grooves lay the foundation for “At the Wedding,” where Moore reveals the thoughts racing through her mind during the emotional and stressful day. She covers everything from concerns about dancing in public to stressing about the toasts and triumphantly rushing into the streets. “At the hotel, couldn’t help but hear the party spill out onto the patio, their voices held in midair like a promise,” she sings. In response to some small talk at the reception, Moore also comments on the band’s success. “To the question of where I think we’ll be in a year or two from now, I’ve been trying not to be so overconfident.”
In “Sister,” Riley’s guitar swirls and shimmers as if the notes are being played underwater. Amid the watery licks and a danceable groove, Moore gets nostalgic. “You talk all about how we watch the world go by. Don’t think about it, I’m so good at killing time,” she sings.
“12 Blown Tires” uses the experience of their tour van blowing tires on a cross-country trip as a metaphor for a career that succeeded while always seeming on the verge of disaster. “I’m getting good at ignoring the past. Seems like our luck was all we had,” Moore sings.
After eight beautiful songs matching Moore’s ethereal voice with hook-laden grooves, shimmering guitar licks, and swelling keyboards, the album and Tennis’s discography ends with a track devoid of lyrics. “In Love (Release the Doves)” serves as a two-minute coda to the album and Tennis’s career. Staccato keys and strings, percussive bongos, and a wordless vocal harmony gradually build and then fade into a moment of silence.
And then it’s over, the album and the music of Tennis. While Face Down in the Garden doesn’t reach the musical peaks of Ritual in Repeat or Yours Conditionally, it’s a fitting tribute to the duo’s fifteen years of warm, retro indie pop. If this is indeed the end of Tennis, we should appreciate those years of being invited into Moore and Riley’s lives.
