Review: Elephant “Sky Swimming”

by Eric Evans

There’s an odd contradiction at the heart of Sky Swimming, the unusually strong debut album by UK duo Elephant. Half the songs strongly recall the heart-on-your-sleeve romanticism of classic late 50s/early 60s pop while others sound like a better example of more or less standard indie shoegaze pop. Both work for singer Amelia Rivas’s ethereal vocals but it’s through the former that the band shines brightest.

This track-by-track schizophrenia isn’t subtle. Elephant sounds confident and comfortable on “TV Dinner,” “Elusive Youth,” “Shipwrecked,” and closing track “Shapeshifter”— a track so lushly melodic it would make Saint Etienne blush. “Allured,” on the other hand, is a different story. Which is not to say they’re not at home doing both, because they are, and a band with either of these sounds would find an audience. But their differentiator is an unerring knack for creating music that references the tropes of classic bobby sox pop without sounding like a throwback or cover band. This is a skill not to be underestimated: the few bands that have been able to sincerely channel that era without sounding like parody (think Blondie and The Cars as opposed to The Cramps) have had fairly remarkable careers owing to their understanding of songcraft. Elephant never feels like a novelty act.

It’s clear that the band is something special when the album opener “Assembly” fades into the opening of “Skyscraper.” One sounds like The Teardrop Explodes, the next immediately creates an image of a space-age high school prom, complete with Duane Eddy guitar, Esquivel keys and organ, with delicately layered Dusty Springfield-esque vocals floating above clouds on a summer day. Both tracks work perfectly. “Shipwrecked” comes closest to reconciling the two distinct styles with gently trilling guitar and more vocal layers. It’s a gorgeous track suffering only from a production decision to warble and interrupt Rivas’s singing with what seems like the opposite of autotune toward the end, rather like an intentional distortion on Tommy James’s voice at the end of “Crimson & Clover.” It’s an unnecessary distraction.

It’ll be interesting to see how Elephant evolves. The story goes that Rivas and the other half of Elephant, Christian Pinchbeck, met at a party and had an on-again, off-again relationship for the three years of the band’s existence. Such a dynamic worked for The White Stripes, so who knows? For now, Sky Swimming is a compelling document of the outset of their partnership. It has obvious crossover potential but is less easily categorized (and therefore radio-friendly) than, say, CHVRCHES. When they focus the melody and emotion of 50s pop through the lens of their taste and technology, Elephant sounds like something very different from their contemporaries.