Emo is a genre built on divisive vocals, and the World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die represented the entire spectrum of such voices on their debut Whenever, If Ever. Between the screamy guy, the yelpy guy, the nervous guy who sang as if sweating through his pocket protector, and the open invitation for anybody else in the band to pipe in whenever they felt it might lend an extra energy to a song, it was a love-it-or-dismiss-it affair, even by the standards of an emo revival that favors messy, overstuffed statements. The eight-piece band may have filtered their updated emo through the sensibilities of some of the most broadly popular indie rock of the '00s, but they were fundamentally a niche act.
On their sophomore album Harmlessness, they become less of one. In an effort to smooth out their rough edges after some lineup changes, TWIABP start with the roughest of them all: those voices. The screamy guy is gone, and the singer who emerges as the de facto pack leader, David Bello, has ironed most of the jitters out of his delivery. Those more approachable vocals set the tone for a record that's more orderly than its predecessor but no less sweeping. These songs still build, crash, weep, and rejoice, often all within the span of a few minutes, and the band still has no interest in moderation. If anything, Harmlessness actually has more going on than Whenever, If Ever, but it’s all done more tastefully, and the album’s warm, open production makes it easier to take in just how sophisticated these arrangements are—without all those voices crowded on top of each other, for instance, you can hear every violin stroke. TWIABP have succeeded where past generations of emo bands have often stumbled: tidying up their sound without losing any of the exuberance and immediacy that made that sound so striking in the first place.
TWIABP tuck their most audacious song toward the front of the record. Condensing a subject loaded enough for a full concept album into five-and-a-half minutes, "January 10th, 2014" tells of Diana, the Hunter of Bus Drivers, the anonymous avenger from Juárez, Mexico, who shot and killed two factory bus drivers in retaliation for the rampant, unprosecuted sexual assaults committed by drivers on late-night routes. She became a folk hero, honored with statues in two cities. The song lifts some lyrics directly from a "This American Life" episode about her myth, including an exchange that’s acted out between Bello and singer/keyboardist Katie Shanholtzer-Dvorak. He voices a driver weary of a passenger who might be Diana; she speaks as every woman relieved to finally have some power over potential predators. "Are you afraid of me now?" she sings. "Well yeah," he responds, "Shouldn’t I be?"
The moment is so on-the-nose, so borderline musical theater, that it’s bound to make some listeners wince, but even those put off by it have got to admire the band’s temerity. Though Harmlessness’s primary fascinations lie with familiar subjects—overcoming depression, navigating changing relationships, finding a place in the world—the band detours from that safe territory to confront listeners with an uncomfortable moral quandary about whether taking a life is ever justified. The song sympathizes with Diana’s crusade while acknowledging the gruesome irony of celebrating a murderer.
Of course, Harmlessness does the safer subjects well, too. One of Bello’s many songs about wrestling himself from depression’s grip, "Rage Against the Dying of the Light" builds to a hooky alt-rock riff, then pivots right into the album’s celebratory highlight, "Ra Patera Dance", which channels the grizzled cheer of Good News-era Modest Mouse. Harmlessness is loaded with these kinds of seamless transitions, and the band’s smart sequencing keeps the record moving with brisk efficiency. "Haircuts for Everybody" takes just a minute and a half to build to its brutally pretty climax.
Where TWIABP’s last album ended with an epic seven-minute closing statement, "Getting Sodas", Harmlessness doubles down with two of them (actually, two and a half, if you count the lovely little hidden track tacked on to the end of "Mount Hum"). Stacking so many moments of grandiosity on top of each other should be overkill, but it isn’t; each suite pays off triumphantly. With Harmlessness, the World Is a Beautiful Place have accomplished a rare feat: a lofty, loaded album with the grace and momentum of a far leaner one.
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