Pitchfork

One of my graphic design classes in college included a project where I had to create a new letterform for the alphabet. Mine looked like an upside-down "Y" with a backward "Z" sprouting from its top. The point of the exercise, as my professor revealed later, was in showing the difficulty of creating a visual icon that doesn't reference other shapes serving the same purpose. It was an important lesson in that such resemblances can be a blessing or a curse, depending on context.

And so are the blessings and curses of Jon Thor Birgisson's fabled Hopelandic. At best, it's a charming attempt at using voice purely as an instrument by removing meanings from words. At worst, Birgisson is singing fictitious words resembling actual ones, which, when strung together, sound ridiculous. It's tough to take "Over the Pond"'s melancholy seriously with him singing, "Shoeside, lookout shoeside." Under different conditions, such as in Sigur Rós' hazy swells of feedback, it might be easier to forgive, but here, vocals take the spotlight.

Fortunately, Album Leaf mastermind Jimmy Lavalle's backdrop and melody are way too good to be completely ruined by Birgisson's babbling mishap. A slight piano ballad, "Over the Pond" unfolds slowly, building with cellos, drums, xylophones at intervals throughout the song. The instrumentation offers a classical intensity that never reaches for abstraction. Instead, it has a sort of simple beauty that doesn't need Hopelandic to be hopeful.