Send "High Places " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Whimsy's tough. Too much, and you risk damning yourself to frivolity, cutesiness; too little, and you flirt with a potentially stultifying self-seriousness. Brooklyn-to-L.A. junkyard-pop duo High Places managed to keep their whimsy in check on their early EPs and stellar, spectral self-titled LP, matching Mary Pearson's swooping sing-songs to an alluring back-bedroom clang, playfully delivered but painstakingly crafted. Time and again in those early days, High Places perched themselves at the midpoint between experimental, electronic mangling and wide-eyed melodics, then proceeded to double-dutch all over it.Things took a turn toward the serious on last year's High Places vs. Mankind. Adding further wrinkles to their rippling productions while tamping down some of Pearson's vocal buoyancy, it's an intriguing-sounding record full of alluring textures and warped schoolyard chants. Next to what came before it, though, Mankind's melodies could seem soft-pedaled, its hooks wedged into tracks rather than constructed alongside them. And Pearson's oft-unaffected vocals took on a disaffection that felt a bit like detachment, that wonder in her voice oddly absent. This shift-- toward a fuller sound, but away from a lighter spirit-- continues on their third LP, Original Colors. Drawing on a spectrum-spanning array of dance music, Original Colors takes its cues from drum'n'bass, minimal techno, and trance's dalliances with pop. Easily their most danceable, production-centered record to date, Original Colors moves with a quicker pulse than anything that came before it. Pearson and Barber still favor their homespun beatmaking setup, and while there's no mistaking most of High Places' production work with that of the pros, they at times manage a pretty good duct-tape-and-popsicle-stick approximation of Roni Size & Reprazent's earthy clamor and the epic, arid trance-pop of Everything But the Girl beatmaker Ben Watt. Though dance purists will likely find Original Colors' careening too sinewy and scattered, every beat is set just so, and Barber and Pearson's anything-goes confidence lends these tracks an appealing elasticity....full text |
| Popmatters |
| On their third album, Rob Barber and Mary Pearson, who make up High Places, want to be more adult. Though the band has explored darker themes, the standout sounds on the previous two albums (2008’s self-titled offering and last year’s more interesting Vs. Mankind) occur in the childlike range made so popular by Animal Collective. But with Original Colors, the duo have stripped down the instrumentation to a dubby focus on percussion and bass and have discovered a sultrier side to Pearson’s vocals. On the opening, “Year Off”, Pearson moves back and forth between dead pan spoken word and an indie impression of an electro diva over a stuttering bassline and industrial percussion. With the next track, “The Pull”, she tops her smoky delivery in a reticent echo of “The Girl from Ipanema” over ethereal keys and shuffling drums. This newfound maturity compliments the more basic sound, reducing songs to their essential qualities. High Places have always had a pop sensibility in their melodies that verged on the saccharine, so Pearson’s innocent delivery often got gummed up in twee. The songs devolved into schoolyard chants, too cute for comfort. Though Pearson still is subdued, she manages to sound like she’s trying harder even as it seems like less: a nice synthesis of disaffected seriousness. The sparseness of the music compliments this world-weary attitude, conjuring late-night comedowns where fading youth reassesses its urgency. Over against the pop qualities of the singing, High Places are able to do weirder things with the instrumentation while eschewing the more recognizable instrumentation of the previous albums. Songs like “Morning Ritual” replicate the dub influenced post-punk fascination with syncopated rhythms and further offset the bubblegum potentiality of the songcraft. But there’s still not enough—not enough noise or weirdness—to make the album really memorable. Original Colors is an interesting direction for High Places but no more coherent than the last couple albums, which offer glimpses of brilliance amid swaths of songs that are merely good enough. Original Colors strikes out at certain points, raising itself from merely pleasant ambient sound with catchy melodies or strange sounds, but for the most part it can go undetected....full text |
| Consequenceofsound |
| From the opening of High Places‘ third record, Original Colors, it’s clear that something fairly fundamental has changed. The best moments off of the self-titled debut from the duo of Rob Barber and Mary Pearson were undeniably cute, the electronic instrumentation glimmering and pulsing, the polyrhythms and love story lyrical content dripping with sentimentalism. The darkwave, almost Depeche Mode-y synths and lost-at-sea vocal performance from Pearson on album opener “Year Off”, on the other hand, have an eerie confidence to them, a new dance music bleakness. The reverb-dripping vocals on “The Pull” are certainly familiar, but the once interestingly multi-layered electronics here sound one-note, a dance track that would get people to the floor without any of the same eclectic trance that made their last two albums charming. The drum ‘n’ bass keeps on coming on “Morning Ritual”, Pearson’s wavering, lithe vocal delivery foregrounded over Barber’s dark, shuddering, dubby electronic mix. The esoteric polyrhythm of “Banksia”, on the other hand, is far more similar to High Places’ past, but the echo-heavy vocal treatment and insistent drum machine track keep things acid dance happy. The atmospheric airiness of “Ahead Stop” provides a nice interlude to all of the beats, returning to their form with the ’80s-friendly “Dry Lake”, where Pearson once again is the chilly, inhuman voice over the top of a traditional dance track. “Sonora” clicks and drips like a leaky faucet, warbly chanted melodies tripping over the top. The wish for a “view of distant mountains” isn’t the same bedroom twee material that they used to cover, but it certainly sounds natural in this context. It’s something bigger, wilder, and less pop structured....full text |
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