Pitchfork

Potentially the most difficult hurdle to leap in the steeplechase of record reviewing is the latest craze of RIYL-ism (pronounced rye-ill-iz-um). RIYL ("Recommended If You Like," for those of you not versed in the parlance) is the bane of the music writer's existence, the awful fate to which all periodicals seem to be headed. As word counts asymptote toward zero, reviews become little more than lists of soundalike bands, subjects and verbs and adjectives reduced to a series of "If you love X, then you'll dig Y" equations.

Yet even with the yards of white space awarded me by the Pitchfork Powers, the temptation of RIYL-ism occasionally remains strong. Sure, I can gussy up the mathematics with rococo prose, but the essence of the essay would be the same: Invoking bands to talk about other bands to weigh the value of the primary band. Sometimes the influence of an ancestor is just too strong, and you can't help but weigh the pros and cons of a derivative sound. Sometimes triangulating an artist's sound is easier done with record-store touchstones than paragraphs of description.

Or sometimes, a critic just feels like he's reviewed the album already. That's the case with me and Envelopes, the Franco-Swede quintet currently gliding on a thin layer of SXSW buzz. Almost exactly a year ago, I enthusiastically tackled Architecture in Helsinki's In Case We Die, praising it as a landmark of the fickle-pop movement sweeping across the indie-rock league. Demon, the Envelopes' debut, is a near doppelganger of that album, down to its multitude of vocalists, its adorable accents ("It Is the Law", coming out something like Hopelandic), its short attention span, its 50s-style romanticism, and its infectious giddiness.

The second helping of dessert is never as good, however, and much of Demon, despite its resemblance to other cherished albums of recent history, gives me a toothache. All the right elements are in place: Liberal use of blippy synthesizers, songs that travel in unexpected directions, a few choice examples of boy/girl vocal volleying. Yet songs like "My Fern" and "Glue" have melodies that enchant while in progress, but evaporate when the song ends, a side effect, perhaps, of the band's restless arrangements.

Divergences from the AiH sound seem to linger a little longer: The Decemberists/Of Montreal nasal storytelling of "Isabelle and Leonard", for instance, or moments like "Sister in Love" where the band gets a little Pixies-style abrasive. But too many precious moments weigh the band down, cutesy twee like "Audrey in the Country" or "Massouvement"-- rote indie pop with a budget.

After a while, the genre contraction and melody U-turns sum up to zero, leaving Envelopes with a viscous sound that's hard to grip. The failing might not entirely rest with the band itself though, coming along as they do on what might the tail end of indie rock's ADD phase, where anyone keeping up has heard this routine already. Then again, forthcoming releases like Danielson's Ships and the Fiery Furnaces' Bitter Tea don't show signs of fickle-pop fatigue, an argument for the prosecution. The truth may be that Envelopes are simply C+ purveyors of the sound, good for passing a half-hour, but in the end, worthy of nothing deeper than RIYL-ism.