The name Uzi & Ari conjures mental images of a pair of 20-something Israeli DJs sweating through their shirts as they spin at a Tel Aviv dance club of which Mossad itself has only heard rumors. However, the five member band Uzi & Ari from Salt Lake City, Utah, makes a type of music that, while excellent, would not contribute much to an ecstasy-fueled rave. Their aesthetic, in fact, falls much more within the thematic ballpark of director Wes Anderson's films, whose The Royal Tenenbaums constitutes the true source of the band's name. Both Anderson and Uzi & Ari specialize in creative works pervaded with low-level melancholy, tempered with a similarly understated optimism. However, while Anderson often lets the audience in on his ultimately good-natured worldview through subtle absurdity and surrealism, Uzi & Ari achieve the same effect through songs that never drag despite their almost meditative character.
For the first minute of album-opener ‘Missoula’, one could mistakenly add Uzi & Ari to the increasingly crowded and redundant freak folk sub-genre. An acoustic guitar provides the main driving force over a low, indistinct bass drum beat, accompanied occasionally by piano, while at the same time front man Ben Shepard provides standard, high-pitched indie vocals. One minute into the song, prominent but well-integrated electronic beats appear in a way that suggests at most, a slight variation on the freak folk template. However in only a few seconds, Shepard hits an impressive note which more raw-sounding vocalists in bands like Akron/Family routinely miss.
At that moment, Uzi & Ari’s framework shifts significantly. Although the indie-folk sensibility never stops providing a guiding force for the album, another weightier sonic influence quickly become apparent. Radiohead's Kid A seems to provide the inspiration for Ben Shepard’s talented Yorke-ian vocals and the band’s equally prominent emphasis on electronic sounds. These comparisons come easily on tracks such as ‘Wolf Eggs’ and ‘Patron Saints’, yet they are far from overbearing, and the electronica provide much of Headworms’ interest. Uzi and Ari’s skill lies in their ability to integrate these influences into something original. When ‘Patron Saints’ slowly lifts with a wash of Coldplay - or U2-esque droning guitars , they appear organically and without a fuss. Symphonic violins and crashing cymbals add architectural flourishes to this brick wall of sound which at first seems incompatible with the fragility that courses through the album. Yet, Uzi & Ari demonstrate their worth by incorporating these disparate traits into a coherent whole.
Based on previous efforts, other critics have compared Uzi & Ari to The Postal Service. In a sense, the band's combination of electronica and pop vocals certainly merits those assertions. However, Uzi & Ari's less direct approach to melody and much subtler physical presence make it unlikely that they will ever produce a song as immediately likable as The Postal Service's ‘Such Great Heights’. Germany’s The Notwist provide perhaps a more apt comparison, in that both bands obviously recognize the aesthetic value of producing entire albums on which neither instrumentation nor vocals demand attention, yet constitute indispensable components of a coherent, intricate document. This circumspect approach to the album’s electronic elements, veering away from the glitch-pop template, contributes much to the beauty of this album.
At 39 minutes, Headworms is not necessarily ‘short’ in the overall scheme of things, but with its delicate beauty and tempered textures, the end comes all too quick. As the final track draws to a close, Uzi and Ari evoke the bittersweet but transcendental mood of The Royal Tenenbaum’s denouement. Something significant and unpredictable has occurred, yet neither Anderson nor Uzi and Ari ever let the audience feel as if events could spiral out of control. In fact, the knowledge that these stabilized, handcrafted worlds must cease to exist provides the understated granule of pain which integrated their visions all along.
