It's often said that all musicians want to be actors, and consequently all actors wish to be musicians. While southern California's Rilo Kiley is fronted by two former thespians, Jenny Lewis (the girl from the old flick The Wizard, the movie that introduced the world to Super Mario Brothers 3) and Blake Sennett (TV shows Salute Your Shorts and Boy Meets World), it is clear that Rilo Kiley exudes legit musical talent. Their first album, Take Offs and Landings, was very well received by music critics and won them spots touring with bands like Ozma, Desaparecidos and Nada Surf. Desaparecidos frontman Conor Oberst (also known as Bright Eyes) liked his touring partners so much that he lured them to his Omaha-based label, Saddle Creek Records, to release their second LP The Execution of All Things.This album is a marked departure from Rilo Kiley's earlier material. Gone are the simple, angst-ridden and angry lyrics. Gone are the shouting and spontaneous outbursts of emotion from Lewis. Gone too are Blake's amazing guitar effects and musical freakouts. Without Jenny's unique vocal stylings, it would be almost impossible to label this a Rilo Kiley album.
Like their earlier material, Rilo Kiley is notoriously bi-polar on their second album. Upbeat sing-alongs like "The Good That Won't Come Out" and "The Execution of All Things" flank darker songs like "Paint's Peeling" and "Hail to Whatever You Found in the Sunlight that Surrounds You". Acoustic guitars replace the multiple effect guitar pedals of the past, allowing the band to explore vastly different styles. "A Better Son/Daughter" combines the elements of Irish folk music and the waltz adapted to Rilo Kiley's mellow rock style.
The sound changes significantly when Sennett takes lead vocals on "Three Hopeful Thoughts," a more traditional Rilo Kiley "rock song" about love and loss, before letting a boy's choir (including the aforementioned Oberst) join Jenny in a sing-along in "With Arms Outstreched." The eleventh track, "Spectacular Views," is probably the finest on the whole album, as the band picks up the tempo, turns up the guitars and lets everything loose before closing with "And That's How I Choose to Remember It," a strange mix of acetone, banjo and saw mixed with Jenny's vocals.
The instrumentation is tighter and more experimental, stepping away from the band's pop-punk roots and moving toward more mature melodies. There aren't any songs as bad as "Go Ahead" or "Bulletproof" on this album, but there also isn't anything as good as "Always" or "Pictures of Success." The two songs that stand out the most on The Execution of All Things, "Paint's Peeling" and "Spectacular Views" are coincidentally the two songs most similar to the old sound. While the lyrics to "The Execution of All Things" suggest big plans for the future: "Bring with you history/and make your hard earned feast/ Then we'll go to Omaha to work and exploit the booming music scene and humility," you can't help but wonder if this is the end of the road for Rilo Kiley. If you want the true Rilo Kiley experience, pick up Take Offs and Landings, pop in your copy of The Wizard (or watch Boy Meets World reruns) and be happy.
Grade: B
