Polara

C’est La Vie (Interscope)
by Sheril Stanford

Here’s what happened. I put Polara‘s latest offering, C’est La Vie, into the player and randomly selected track twelve, “Shanghai Bell,” then track five, “So Sue Me,” only to discover they were pretty much the exact same song, except with different lyrics, both apparently sung by a vocalist pretending to be the Monkees’ Davy Jones (albeit with interesting effects from a digeridoo). Both struck me as sluggish, saccharine, simpering pop songs, appropriate only for soundtracks to bad made-for-TV movies about incurable diseases. Then I skipped back to track one, “Transformation,” and concluded that, no matter how much undefinable noise you layer on a bland pop song, it’s still… well, you know. Then I tried “Elasticity,” ponderous and dirge-like, top-heavy with slow, martial drum beats and shoe-gazing backing vocals. When I could stand no more, I read the bio – all critical raves, although all from two years ago. Then I talked to a friend who’s a walking Who’s Who of contemporary music, who told me Polara’s main man, Ed Ackerson, is something of a big fish in the frozen pond of Minneapolis, and is known for being quite the innovator. So, what am I missing here? I try again.

Okay, “Make It Easy” rocks a little, but it sure doesn’t, as the promo materials suggest, “collide with jungle breakbeats” (did we listen to the same disc?). Bio writers – “vocal aberrations,” yes, “pretty melodies,” yes, but “freaky beauty?” WHERE? “Idle Hands” musters a bit of energy, but there’re so many slick layers of sound that they all blend together into one thick, heavy, suffocating blanket of indistinguishable, impotent noise. Other than that, though, it’s a great disc.