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Sep 26, 2014 Issue #51 - September/October 2014 - alt-J By Michael Wojtas

The Proper Ornaments are happy-when-it-rains Londoners. Wooden Head, their sophomore album, plays like history’s best jangly, nocturnal guitar bands being reduced to whisper levels (imagine the circular, noir-ish surf licks of Marquee Moon, “Just Like Honey,” and early Felt emanating from a distant neighbor’s window).

If road trips never taken and Augusts spent indoors have a sound, surely it’s this. Listening evokes the peculiar melancholy of flipping through stacks of yellowing thrift store Kodachromes that document the long-gone good times of strangers you’ll never meet. Full of murmured, muted harmonies and evincing a loneliness both personal and provincial, Wooden Head is a Byrds-worshipping, bummer-in-the-summer mystery. Why visit the California coast when you can simply stay holed up in a dreary flat, daydreaming of it? (www.theproperornaments.bandcamp.com)

Author rating: 7/10