Model Photographer

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon an mp3 by Model Photographer on Largehearted Boy, which I dutifully downloaded and let sit on my hard drive for days on end. I eventually got around to listening to a huge playlist of downloads and smack dab in the middle of the list was "Cassette Tape."

Model Photographer - "Cassette Tape" [mp3]

This is one hell of a track and is all of the reasons I read music blogs wrapped up into one song. An aching song full of regret and crunchy guitars, "Cassette Tape" is worth putting on repeat and listening for an hour straight. Go ahead, "Just close your eyes and listen," as Alex Rose sings.

If the name Alex Rose sounds familiar you most likely recognize him as the new keyboardist in Minus the Bear. To be honest, I was extremely disappointed when Matt Bayles left MTB after Menos el Oso and was even more disappointed when I heard Rose's performance on Planet of Ice. I could write an entire post on why, but I'll save that for another time because Rose more than makes up for it with his compositions on Model Photographer's self-titled LP.

After a week of listening to "Cassette Tape" and the few other tracks I downloaded from MP's MySpace, I headed into the Ballard Sonic Boom and picked up the physical disc. The album is impressive in admittedly conventional ways, but it has served to fill the void Planet of Ice left in my soul. Unfortunately, MP had posted their best tracks on their MySpace so the first listen through was a bit of a let down. But the record is overall a solid effort.

The 9-track LP (if you can even call a 9 songs spanning less than 30 minutes an LP) starts off with a bang in the gorgeous "Gone." Rose's lilting vocals slide up and down the melodic line through the verses, amplifying the transition to the loud, soaring, crunchy and much more melodically defined chorus.

Model Photographer - "Gone" [mp3]

The next two tracks, "Secret Club" and "Don't Be A Moper," are unremarkable. The fill some space until you advance to "Hey Girl," a song that anchors the entire middle section of the album all by itself. Rose is laid back and confident in his delivery and foregos a wall of distortion for textured synthesizers and an acoustic guitar, to complement the ever-present lead electric guitar. This use of synthesizers is spot on and a marked contrast to his performance on Planet of Ice. Rose drops his distorted guitar beneath his melodic line, creating more of a foundation than a wall, and complements this with a layer of keyboards and acoustic guitar. A cherry on top, Rose adds a lovely synth line on top of the chorus, completing a lovely song. If Rose had orchestrated his parts like this with MTB, it is very likely I would have enjoyed Planet of Ice a lot more.

Model Photographer - "Hey Girl" [mp3]

The end of the album is of good quality, but is again generally unremarkable. "Before You Drive Away" is a solid, rocking track, more so than many things I have listened to this week. But is in the same vein of the rest of the songs on this record without much variation. This changes with the concluding track, "Snow Fall." I actually did very little research on MP as I was listening to "Cassette Tape." But after finding their MySpace and hearing "Snow Fall" I had no choice. This song is in the spitting image of Minus the Bear on Menos el Oso. It is a sparse, down-tempo piece and with layered vocals; it's minimalism done right.

Model Photographer - "Snow Fall" [mp3]

Buy the Model Photographer LP at Sonic Boom.

[Model Photographer] [MySpace] [Last.fm]