Elf Power

Back To The Web

[3/5] When a 12-year-old ex-Elephant 6 Collective band whose privately owned record label (Orange Twin) doubles as a land-conservation project say they’ve been listening to Gypsy music and Middle Eastern folk, one assumes they’re gearing up to drop a load of psychedelic hippie bullshit on the world. But Elf Power have beaten the odds with Back To The Web, an intriguing album that, while worth its weight in psychedelia, also finds the band redirecting the classic pop that had grown a little weary on 2004’s Walking With The Beggar Boys. Brimming with an array of instruments, including 12-string acoustic guitar, accordion and clarinet, Web finds Elf Power embracing exotic tendencies that are more about rejuvenation than regurgitation. In fact, the band are now making just the sort of left-field pop that finds artists being labeled “hot new things”–too bad their 15 minutes of indie fame evaporated with E6. Then again, they’re finally transcending the stylistic limitations of the E6 tag, which is probably all these Georgia tree-huggers ever wanted, anyway.
(RYKODISC) Marc Hawthorne