Aleks and the Ramps
Midnight Believer
(Stomp)
Melbourne five-piece Aleks and the Ramps have put together something special for their second album
Midnight Believer; something that should be an end-of-year contender without the continent of origin as a caveat.
The Ramps have undergone a line-up change in the two years since their debut,
Pieces Vs Aquarius. New drummer "Black Wasp" coupled with the extensive live performance these songs saw before recording has helped both expand and tighten the oft-ramshackle group into a true
band. Though most of these songs reportedly started life as banjo workouts in the bedroom of titular frontman Aleks Bryant,
Midnight Believer is characterized largely by its dynamic, technicolour arrangements, sounding like it was written by twenty different songwriters playing almost as many instruments. The sheer stylistic disparity and playful, energetic attitude make this album like a schizophrenic patient on meds – technically it’s under control, but it threatens to descend into an exciting chaos at any moment. As if Arcade Fire were from Narnia. This is slightly reductive, however, because these songs are personal and it’s this intimacy, more than so than the effortless musical adaptability, that draws the listener in to their complex arrangements.
Midnight Believer deftly
covers folk, electronica, chamber pop, metal, classic rock, experimental elements. In a nutshell? Banjo musings taking on distorted guitar heroics. But The Ramps don’t use these genre explorations to compensate for weak compositions, merely as intuitive manifestations of their meandering and enthusiastic pop sensibility.
Take ‘Ideas Circa 1992,’ which begins with hokily imparted non-wisdoms (“you check yourself in every full length mirror you find / but you’ll never know how you look to people walking behind”) atop of spooky backing vocals before transgressing into a bossa-nova flavoured office romance exchange with co-singer Janita Foley. It’s an hilarious, bittersweet song that neatly showcases the fluidity of performances (largely recorded live), the chemistry between the vocalists, and Bryant’s penchant for obscure but endearing lyrics. Like the arrangements themselves, they read like stream-of-consciousness; uncontrived absurdity. Nothing sounds labored, over-thought, or unnecessarily indulgent – an admirable feat for a band featuring an electronic spoken word piece a la ‘Fitter Happier’ (‘Weather Patterns’).
The banjo-led ‘Hey Owl’ finds the narrator longs for a partner who’s died in a plane crash (“when your plane plunged into the sea / it made a wreck of itself and me”), only the song is sprightly, the descending denouement uplifting. It’s a fitting centerpiece for the album’s A Side, more straightforward than its latter, more acrobatic counterpart. Venemous vocal interplay (‘Whiplash’) and the shifting, heaving segments of ‘Boy Meets Ghost’ create a more experimental flavour, instilling a sense of divine disorder. Single ‘Antique Limb’ closes the record, it's futuristic incarnation of afro pop a fitting finale to an album bent on deriving uniqueness from the Ramps vast influences.
What holds everything together here though is Bryant’s vocals and inspired musings. There’s a weight behind his words, amplified by his imperfect baritone, and it binds these songs while also creating a tone that’s touching yet not earnest; playful but not silly. Midnight Believer is the end product of unbridled creativity, boldness, and the wits to synthesise these traits into catchy art-pop songs.
Matt Hickey