Slowed down and stripped back, the most recent of offering from ‘alternative’ group El Libero is a neat and well paced track exploring some of the more literary avenues of contemporary indie music.
The stress on metre, on rhyme and parallelisms through the track gives a deliberate feel to ‘Above’ – which is perhaps necessary for a song breaching the five-minute mark. It takes a lot to lend your focus to an acoustic, downbeat track for this long, though the careful competence underlying its melody draw attention. ‘Above’ feels safe, secure, built around thought-through principles of what a good song should sound like.
With florid language and clever chords, the band have, again, turned around a tidy little song that feels all pretty fluent.
The Beatles comparison is not unwarranted. There doesn’t appear to be anything overdone or overstated about what the song’s trying to be; it’s a refreshing change to listen to a track built around uncomplicated, modest themes and the steady plod of a few instrumental guidances.
And hence, in a way, there is something still quite sophisticated about the whole act – something somehow a bit more grown-up than rival contemporaries of this ilk. ‘Above’ is the kind of song that both you and your mother will able to listen to without any shame. It’s not a difficult one to get your head around and it doesn’t claw onto relevance by having to be garish and showy, either.
On the whole, it’s pretty different to what we heard in April with ‘Butterfly’, but as the band begins to find its identity with another unbroken successful gesture, there’s something about the EP that puts El Libero in good stead to become a name recognised for its careful and considered proficiency.
Above is due for release on June 15th.
Words by James Reynolds