Over the past few years, Army Navy has established itself as a modern-day torchbearer of power-pop. As demonstrated on its 2008’s self-titled debut and again on 2011’s The Last Place, the Los Angeles-based trio’s sound turned heads with its infectious brand of indie that evokes everyone from Big Star to Teenage Fanclub to Matthew Sweet. The band’s sound, offering shimmering hook-laden arrangements, is immediately accessible without managing to feel predictable or overdone, despite its been-there-done-that attitude. And now The Wilderness Inside is the latest example of Army Navy’s unflinching confidence as the foremost purveyors of the tried-and-true genre.
What’s most surprising about the release is its utter lack of tricks. Frontman Justin Kennedy, drummer Douglas Randall and guitarist Louie Schultz have nothing up their sleeves except skill and poise that blooms and vines its way around each track. The catchiness of The Wilderness Inside simply can’t be tamed; it wraps itself around you, intertwining and tangling its melodies and arrangements around in your head so they’re stuck there. With the exception of a few piano tinkerings, dreamy backing vocals and some sporadic brass arrangements (among other ornamentations), the album attaches to you organically with little more than fluttering guitar work, sturdy rhythms and soaring melodies. The songs’ components should feel skeletal, but Army Navy’s hooks and attention to the craft help flesh them out more fully, offering robust and plentiful pop rock that suggests the genre might not be as transient or outmoded as some suggest.
However, while no doubt pristine, The Wilderness Inside sometimes lets its flaws surface. Unintentionally but unavoidably, the album pays a price for all of that gooey, sticky goodness that cements to you like glue: at times, the songs’ sound can become repetitive. While the album is chock-full of glimmering pop standouts like the sorrowful beauty “In Waves” or the sparkling “The Mistakes” or the harrowing “Crushed Like the Car,” it sometimes suffers from minimal diversity in dynamics and dimension. Even on more mellow tracks, the band uses the same ingredients, concocting similar results but with a texture that’s sometimes staler than you might hope.
But to fault the band for not doing enough sonically feels misguided; to do so would be to misconstrue redundancy for consistency—and The Wilderness Inside is certainly the band’s most consistent in size and scope. The LA band has created an unswerving, sunny pop record that has something irresistible about it. It’s jubilant. It’s buoyant. It feels void of strife and conflict despite lyrical content suggesting otherwise. It is a feel-good summer album, and because of that, Army Navy helps the flame of power-pop to burn brightly on. Perhaps the best approbation for the record’s mission is explored on the song “Spinning on the Record”—an encomiastic love letter to music and all of its impact and progeny. This album is a celebration. Army Navy isn’t trying to reinvent the power-pop wheel; the band is just trying to keep the whole thing intact and moving forward—and thankfully The Wilderness Inside does just that.