The blog-propelled celebrity of Ernest Greene has managed to debauch our future expectations of his music. The man made haze-heavy, textural pop under the Washed Out moniker which become the forefront of a post-shoegaze movement known only as ‘chillwave’. On his previous effort, 2010′s excellent Life of Leisure EP, he interposed the melting musical passageways of his immediate bedroom-based contemporaries with masterful songcraft, a deed that put him in an enviable yet precarious position. Inevitably, news of a full-length in the works was hastily followed by vivid discussions that scurried to the brink of pointlessness and back. Though all the incessant banter was enough to throw us off guard, few could predict Greene’s debut Within And Without would be, of all things, boring.
Greene could very well pride himself on being among the cleverest, most accessible exponent of the pseudo-scene he’s repeatedly branded a part of. As evident on Life of Leisure, his penchant for producing warm, glo-fi earworms is irrefutable (cue ‘Hold Out’, or breakthrough single ‘Feel It All Around’). But things don’t go as well the moment he decides to head north. On Within And Without, Greene moves away from the beach, using the hiss and crackle to icier effect. His approach is more personal as he attempts to aurally depict the paphian dynamics between two individuals. Greene succeeds, but only to an extent. As individual pieces of music, the nine tracks on Within And Without work to some degree. They’re capable of making a good first impression, but limp while attempting to go the distance.
Standouts include the excellent opener ‘Eyes Be Closed’ – with an affable 4pm proch feel, the absolutely brilliant ‘Far Away’ – its echoey chorus an glimpse at how Within And Without would sound like in a perfect world and ‘You and I’, a well-crafted reminder of Greene’s previous work. The faults in Within And Without are only glaringly apparent when heard as a record. When placed one after the other, most tracks lose luster and often end up sounding outright dreary. The awkward manner in which the songs cancel each other out impair what could otherwise be a great step forward for Greene. Within And Without is an admirable experiment indeed, but had he kept the concept for a later year and an exponentially mature approach, we could have had something special on our hands.
Indiecision: B-
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