Send "A Lull " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 The video to Confetti opener "Weapons For War" begins in a field. There are shots of tall grass and wild flowers and berries, as well as the insects whose drone provides a segue to the song's forthcoming hum. It works really well. A Lull are a Chicago outfit that specialize in rangy, wildly percussive indie pop that takes a lot of its rhythmic cues from Sigur Rós' most recent LP, 2008's Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust (translation: "With a buzz in our ears we play endlessly"), as well as that of frontman Jónsi's 2010 solo outing, Go. Both of those records demonstrated the Icelanders' transition into more contained pop formats, though the kineticism of Go in particular is the better jumping off point. Like this wide-open field, it was a record alive at every turn. A Lull seem to be in similar pursuit, tripping up only in figuring out a way to squeeze it all into song form.Much of what's to be heard on Confetti scans as a series of thoroughly fleshed-out vocal and rhythmic exercises, many of them so similar they congeal into one. Take for instance the blippy rumble of "Dark Stuff" or that of "Some Love" just before it. While the rhythms and drum sounds vary slightly from one another, the vocal acrobatics of frontman Nigel Evan Dennis tend to glue everything together in an oddly disjointed manner. Elsewhere, "Pregnancy" takes on an industrial punch that still seems to sound of a piece with "Spread It All Around". This, despite the many angles from which he attacks them. From end to end, Dennis delivers a tireless performance: he darts, he dives, he dips, he sprinkles syllables in fizzy staccato and/or he smears them across a song in breathy fashion. Little of this done without an added layer of processing....full text |
| Indierockreviews |
| 1. Who’s in the band? Where do I begin? Ha. The 5 of us have been friends for many years and have all been playing music most of our lives. It only seemed natural and comfortable to play together. We all come from different musical backgrounds and I think that helps in writing. 2. How did the band end up forming? Todd Miller and I had been in a previous band. That band had dissipated but it left the two of us wanting to continue writing and recording music. We didn’t have to worry about carrying over any previously conceived sound or style because we were starting fresh. After writing for a while and trying to see where we could take it, we asked our friend Mike Brown to add his unique guitar styling to it and we recorded what became our first EP, “Ice Cream Bones”. After that, we decided we needed to bring on more talent to achieve an even larger sound that realized we wanted. Ashwin and Aaron were both great drummers and our bands had played together in previous years. We all wrote and recorded “Confetti” together and I think the progression shows. 3. What was your first concert experience? Honestly, I don’t remember my first concert experience. I have been playing in bands and such since I was about 15 (ha). So, yeah, memories get kind of blurred and its hard to remember anything frightening or exciting. 4. Did you grow up wanting to play music, or when did the whole making albums thing come about and how? Oh, ya. I grew up in a musical household. My dad has been playing drums since I can remember, and before that. I’ve always been surrounded by it. Being a 10-year old kid with my dad having jam sessions in the basement, etc. It was fun growing up around all kinds of music. Got to hear Faust, Captain Beefheart, Zappa, Captain Beyond, Gentle Giant, T Rex and the like at a very young age....full text |
| Thelineofbestfit |
| When putting on Confetti, it’s like stepping into a carnival. There’s an atmosphere within this record that allows you to picture a foreign island, with samba drums playing, a frenzy of colours welcoming you. This probably sounds vaguely similar to the visual experience you might get from a Friendly Fires record, but on A Lull’s debut it’s less in your face, more teasing and inviting. It’s the kind of record that you’d expect to light up an audience, regardless of their familiarity with A Lull. Reportedly, that’s been the case recently, with the quintet winning over un-fussed crowds during their tour support slot for Cold War Kids. And yet, whilst it might flourish in a tightly-packed, barely-lit venue, it suffers somewhat in the setting of a commute to work with nothing but industrial factories and glum faces to stare at. A Lull seem to be one of many bands troubled by the process of transferring their raucous live energy into a listenable collection of tracks. Quite frankly, Confetti comes across as overwhelming at first; so thick are its waves of percussion that help in defining the album. Post-teething problems however, you find yourself in a trance-like state, hypnotised by its intensity. Vocals act as an instrument, ratter-tatter-ing for opener ‘Weapons For War’, warped to sound like a backing track in ‘Sideman’. The percussion is irreplaceable throughout; a constant amongst the Chicago group’s playful experimentations. According to mythology, a good 75 tracks were written before hands were tied and a record had to be made, and yet you’d be forgiven for thinking that Confetti was the product of one seamless, post-midnight recording session. Amongst it all is ‘Phem’, a psychedelic homage to free spirits, reciting a “summer of love”, vocals chanting “we play games with our bodies in a good way”, taking you to this carnival I mentioned at the very beginning....full text |
A Lull lyrics
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