The Elected: Bury Me In My Rings

The Elected: Bury Me In My Rings
From his days as a child actor on Salute Your Shorts to his music work with Rilo Kiley, Blake Sennett has the kind of resume I could only dream of. In 2004, Sennett started The Elected with Who’s the Boss actor, Scott Bloom. The band’s debut album, Me First received a solid 8.0 from Pitchfork Media. Their follow up album, 2006’s Sun, Sun, Sun was less well received but the band is looking to rebound from their sophomore slump with their first album on Vagrant Records, Bury Me In My Rings.
The Elected’s debut album was applauded for its mix of indie rock and country but the band has slowly but surely moved away from that mix. Bury Me In My Rings takes the next step away from alt-country and almost completely indulges in mid-century Californian rock. Every song on the album seems to be handcrafted on the beach while soaking in the sun.
The album’s opening track, “Born To Love You,” is a lazy summer jam that is high on fluff and seemingly low on content. The pathos are so relaxing that it is almost easy to overlook the fact that the track lacks a solid hook.
Much of the album has lackluster hooks in fact. The album’s lead single “Babyface” has one of the stronger hooks on the album. Sennett’s uses an almost Luke Steele-esque falsetto on the chorus to make it memorable while the surf guitar noodling on the track is not exactly Dick Dale-esque but it works for the lazy vibe of the album.
Maybe the fact that I am listening to a lazy summer album during a spell of rainy and unseasonably cool weather here in New England has something to do with my impressions of it but to me, Bury Me In My Rings seems mediocre at best. The album lacks the strong hooks that are necessary to make California pop albums work and instead relies completely on a vibe.
Rating: 4.5/10
MP3: The Elected “Born to Love You”
Buy: iTunes or Amazon