The following article was submitted by Akila Figueroa:

Luke Temple recorded the first Here We Go Magic album on his own using a 4-track recorder. This time around he recruits a full band, adding Peter Hale, Jennifer Turner, Michael Bloch, and Kristina Lieberson to the recording process, giving Pigeons a noticeably fuller sound than its predecessor. The songwriting as a whole sounds a lot more mature and the production value has gone up considerably compared to the first album providing a fuller, more clean feel. This is of course a very welcome change for me, one which made me curious, upon first listen, to hear what the rest of the album had in store.

Similar to the first album, Pigeons is also split into categories, which should reassure everyone that just because the production values went up, the band has not completely abandoned their whole style. You have your more pop leaning songs, such as “Collector”, “Old World United”, and “Casual”, more experimental pieces such as, “Moon” and “Herbie I Love You, Now I Know”, and you also have the dreamy, mellow psychedelic numbers such as “Surprise”, “F.F.A.P.”, and “Land of Feeling”, which sound a little like the Super Furry Animals, whose sound seems to be quite influential these days… think Broken Bells.

Admittedly, I was caught off guard a bit upon listening to the first track “Hibernation”. Their first album, entitled Here We Go Magic, brought to mind the loose psychedelic pop explorations of Noah Lennox, and the lo-fi noise experimentations of Bradford Cox, with its own original indie pop charm. “Hibernation” sounds more like the children of Brian Eno, Mark Mothersbaugh and Kevin Barnes got together when their parents weren’t looking and decided to form a band based on their mutual love for Elf Power and other similar Elephant 6 Collective bands, which is definitely a good thing.

Pigeons is not a complete departure from the first album and is definitely not a sophomore slump. Here We Go Magic took the best of what made the first album tasty, spiced it up, added a few more ingredients and made an album which is even more enjoyable and digestible than its first.

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Photos courtesy of Ben Ritter and Gabe McNatt