We Will Always Love You’s embrace of musical guests makes it a good pop album, at the expense of the Avalanches’ presence and charm
When the Avalanches released Wildflower in 2016, I think a big reason I rated it so highly was that I never expected to hear it. It came 16 long years after their genre-defining plunderphonics album Since I Left You, and the intervening years brought both band shakeups and false alarms that their sophomore album was coming out any day now. It felt like a small miracle to actually listen to it, and the album itself was great too. Sure, the addition of guest artist instead of another release based entirely on samples took some getting used to, but acclimating to this change was a small price to pay for new Avalanches.
We Will Always Love You pushes the Avalanches’ embrace of musical guests further into the forefront, sacrificing some of the band’s presence and charm in the process. It’s also harder to overlook this shift and just be appreciative of new music from the band this time around, given that it’s only been four years since their last album, not 16. That said, it’s a pretty good pop album if you can manage to separate it from the Avalanches’ legacy.
The biggest question you may have when listening to We Will Always Love You is “where are the Avalanches?” There are several songs so focused on the guest artist that you may forget that the duo behind We Will Always Love You’s relatively simple backing tracks once created something as rich and complex as Since I Left You. “Interstellar Love” combines a sample of the Alan Parsons Project’s “Eye in the Sky” with guest vocals by Leon Bridges, and it seems like the Avalanches just added a beat and two synthesizer tones. It sounds pretty similar to a lot of the pop out there right now. “Take Care in Your Dreaming” is completely dominated by Denzel Curry’s rapping, and the Avalanches don’t seem to be doing much more than your average hip-hop producer here. Likewise, “Gold Sky” would be extremely repetitive without Kurt Vile’s spoken vocals as a centerpiece.
On the flipside, there are other tracks where the guests feel straight up underutilized. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O appears on the album for less than 30 seconds, and only to read a single line, which feels inadequate for one of the most influential indie rockers of the 2000s. “The Divine Chord” supposedly includes both MGMT and the Smiths’ guitarist Johnny Marr, and while the former is recognizable thanks to Andrew VanWyngarden’s vocals, I’m not entirely sure what Marr contributes. “Reflecting Light” could have been a brilliant trip-hop song, but Sananda Maitreya’s singing and a sample of Vashti Bunyan are torpedoed by the shrill sound of a whistle in the first half.
I don’t want to rain on the Avalanches’ parade too much though, since there’s no shortage of brilliant tracks on We Will Always Love You. On several occasions, the guests fit in just right with the Avalanches’ handiwork. “The Divine Chord” has a bassline and string samples that complement MGMT wonderfully to make a great disco number. On the album’s title track, Blood Orange’s voice is intertwined with the samples rather than each taking their turn. “We Go On” is based around a sample of the Carpenters’ “Hurting Each Other,” and the contrast between the vocals from Cola Boyy and the Clash’s Mick Jones (with his very distinctive accent) make it stand out in the best way. Occasionally, the Avalanches shine all by themselves. “Music Makes Me High” forgoes guests in favor of two heavily utilized funk samples, and it honestly wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Since I Left You. “Overcome” and “Born to Lose” are also classic Avalanches, opting for mishmashes of samples to deliver a 70s homage.
Even the tracks that sound nothing like what you’d expect from the Avalanches aren’t all that bad on their own. “Running Red Lights” made me think “oh no” the first time I heard it, since it’s hard to notice anything other than Rivers Cuomo’s nonsensical lyrics and Pink Siifu’s interlude on it. That said, I would totally listen to a Weezer track with the line “California life is alright with me.” I’m likewise a little ambivalent on “Wherever You Go,” since the line between Jamie xx’s instrumental guest spot and whatever the Avalanches put into it is fairly blurred. My hunch is that Jamie xx is responsible for the sections where a heavier kick drum and bass drop come in, and I’ll concede that the track sounds way more like Jamie xx than the Avalanches. That said, I’m a huge fan of Jamie xx and still eagerly await the follow up to In Colour.
The Avalanches also still nail the idea of giving an album a theme. While Wildflower was all about the 60s, psychedelia, “flower power” and all that, We Will Always Love You combines the poignancy of loss with outer space. The “loss” theme emerges prominently on the first two tracks, between a heartbreaking voicemail intro (“Ghost Story”) and “Song for Barbara Payton’s” tragic soul sample. The space theme was inspired by The Avalanches’ interest in “how every radio broadcast from the last hundred years is still floating out there in space” and how humans have sent things like the Voyager Golden Record into deep space. “Wherever You Go” even incorporates messages from this record, such as “hello from the children of planet Earth.” Elsewhere, the title track contains what sounds like the pings of a satellite, and “Until Daylight Comes” mixes Tricky’s vocals with celestial static. This motif can feel a little overdone at times though, as there’s a glut of interludes on this 25-track album and the closing track “Weightless” did not need to be almost three minutes of the Arecibo message’s Morse code-like bleeps.
While many parts of We Will Always Love You make me nostalgic for the Avalanches of two decades ago, it’s worth remembering that another album like Since I Left You couldn’t happen today. The approach of “sample first, ask copyright questions later” only works if you don’t plan to make any money, and years of legal wrangling for clearances (as happened before Wildflower) isn’t all that practical for a band who wants to remain viable. As I wrote in 2016, if Since I Left You was a pure musical collage, then Wildflower was just a collage with fewer pieces and more areas where the artist added their own original contributions. We Will Always Love You is the next step in this direction, with even more original touches that are now front and center. Viewed this way, it’s a very good album that often makes the best of its musical guests, and occasionally shows off the Avalanches’ mixing and sample chops by themselves. If you long for a return to intricate collages though, now might be the time to stop looking back.
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