Artist: Onerepublic
Album: Native
Genre: Pop/rock
Label: Mosley/Interscope

I’m not sure if this is due to the calibre of music I reviewed earlier in the week, but I am thoroughly unmoved by this album. I want to like it – at least, I think I do. It’s by OneRepublic who are naught if not predictable, and in theory should be providing a solid piece of generically accessible pop/rock to score the background of technology ads for the next year or so. It is the definition of mainstream pop. It’s big in scale, bland on sound, enhanced to within an inch of its life and neither obtrusive nor gripping. It bears all the hallmarks of acceptable background listening and yet, I just don’t like it. There’s a fundamental disconnect buried somewhere within these flimsy, doe-eyed songs and it turns Native from a potentially likeable listen into something disinteresting at best and irritatingly vacuous at worst. It’s gone over and above itself to sound pretty, and OneRepublic have indeed shown that they are capable of making lush music, but this isn’t it. This is a wayward and ill-concealed attempt at mass appeal that smacks of trying too hard. Its dullness is actually incredibly irritating.

It’s obvious that the band gave their all on this album. There is a lot of heart and soul in it. The problem is that they were too eager to please. They’ve over-embellished the music to within an inch of its life and buried it under so many needless synths and add-ons that it just sounds nervous and unconvincing. Soft thoughtful verses give way to hugely overdone choruses, completely removing any hint of atmosphere or engagement. Even worse, the added effects do nothing to add rhythm or catchiness. Mostly, they drown out what’s already there. Tracks become creaky, flimsy pieces of flotsam that can’t pull their scattered parts into a cohesive whole. This might have worked if the songs were stronger to begin with, but such brazen effects work just doesn’t fit with OneRepublic’s vacant, pensive style. “Counting Stars” and “If I Lose Myself Again” exhibit this perfectly. They are good, likeable songs but they’re put through such a myriad of tempo changes and swelling instrumentation that they come completely undone. The synths sound like something you’d get pre-recorded on a keyboard. “Feel Again” aims to be celebratory and uplifting and does convey some palpable longing in its lyrics. However, so much effort is put into making the song sound like it’s important that the band forgets to actually make it important. It grasps blindly at a sense of purpose and occasion but can’t quite find it. A good deal of Native has this problem – it’s trying to convince you it’s momentous, but there’s a gaping void between album and listener. You can sense something’s there but you never quite feel it. “Au Revoir” spends too much time floating off into imagined realms, scored by irritatingly cloying backing effects, to actually put some solid grounding under itself. “Something I Need” is cheesy, emotionally barren, and clichéd.

It says a multitude that the parts of this that do engage are more organic. “What You Wanted” has its head firmly aloft in the clouds, but there’s some good grounded drumming to spur it forward. It feels more focused and less insipid. “I Lived” is simple and bracing, its earthy beginnings giving way to more rhythmic guitar notes. The chorus is ruinous – instrumentation and percussion are out of sync and it drowns the promising opening in generic indie gloss – but that aside, it’s far better than the rest. “Light It Up” isn’t particularly good but it is made of sturdier stuff, with a strength and rigour that gives it some substance. It’s not even that these songs are particularly brilliant, but their simplicity is endearing. They have actual character instead of manufactured zeal.

It’s hard to believe that something that should be so harmless should be so annoying, but Native is an annoyingly poor album. It takes generically appealing songs and transforms them into overworked and undernourished sanctimony. Blandly produced pop is perfectly fine if you don’t try to pretend that it’s something it’s not, but OneRepublic are too invested in making this sound perky and forget to infuse it with character. Native would have done far better without the erratic structuring and dodgy effects.

SCORE: 4/10
Review written by Grace Duffy

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