Audio By Carbonatix
Mercifully, very little has changed since Radar Bros. gave us And the Surrounding Mountains, a majestic Barrett-meets-Beatles slab of dreamy pop. On The Fallen Leaf Pages, head moper Jim Putnam still pens opulent, melancholic waltzes that would fit right in on Pink Floyd’s Meddle. And he still spends countless hours in his backyard studio, painstakingly tweaking those luminous layers of sound. Acoustic strumming and dainty drumming give the record an elegant austerity, while playful piano and organ lines, delicate melodies and radiant harmonies combine to create lush, sparkling love songs about butterflies, ants, milk and blood. Putnam and company create music that is quietly confident and assertively fragile. The trio’s latest might not be what some call progress, but if you appreciate the unchanging blue of the sky or the predictably arresting tumbled-rock brown of your lover’s eyes, you’ll see that sometimes change is the enemy of perfection.
