When Zach Condon began writing music under the moniker Beirut, he chose a fairly loaded name. The city of Beirut, one of the cultural and intellectual centers of the Middle East, has been plagued by wars, assassinations and other conflicts in recent decades.
But it’s also an interesting name to choose for a band that doesn’t have many ties, musical or otherwise, to Lebanon or the Middle East. Instead, Beirut plays delicately constructed songs based in the musical traditions of Eastern Europe. On Beirut’s sophomore effort, The Flying Club Cup, the band moves further west on the continent, adopting elements of French music into its new set of songs.
Condon, a 21-year-old native of Santa Fe, N.M., dropped out of high school at age 17 to travel across Europe. There, he discovered a new world of music – the traditional folksongs of the Roma people, colloquially known as gypsies. Beirut’s debut album, Gulag Orkestar, was recorded when Condon was 18 and was released to critical acclaim. Since then, Condon has been nothing if not prolific, issuing one EP prior to the release of The Flying Club Cup.
The Flying Club Cup marks a more mellow, tamer direction for Beirut. One of the most prominent aspects of Gulag Orkestar’s sound was Condon’s heavy reliance on horns, which breathed life into the album and gave the songs a sense of urgency. These horns also garnered Beirut more than a few comparisons to Neutral Milk Hotel’s landmark In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, an album held in high esteem by indie-rock fans.
The Flying Club Cup, on the other hand, tones down the horns in favor of accordion and strings, arranged by Owen Pallett of the Arcade Fire. The result is an album filled with queasy sea shanties, with Condon’s effete voice quavering about French cities.
Yet one of the mistakes Condon makes on The Flying Club Cup is that the individual tracks tend to blend together, and not in the “seamless album” or “sonic adventure” sort of way. There’s not much that distinguishes the individual songs from each other, and when there is something unique about a song – such as the martial drumbeat of “Cliquot” or the choral caterwauling at the end of album closer “The Flying Club Cup” – it sticks out, even if the rest of the song is mediocre.
To Condon’s credit, however, the way the songs on The Flying Club Cup are structured is a marked improvement from those on Gulag Orkestar. Some of the songs on the band’s debut consisted of instrumental vamps, with percussion and other instruments floating in and out to mark the different parts of the songs. On this album, the songs are fleshed out, with more interesting instrumentation. It seems like Condon’s backing band has improved a bit, particularly on accordion-heavy tracks like “Cliquot” (man, Beirut’s accordion player can really rock out).
Many of the aspects of Beirut’s sound that drew so many people to Gulag Orkestar are toned down on The Flying Club Cup, and as a result, the album lacks a sense of urgency – or plain energy – and instead meanders aimlessly. Fans of folk and world music may want to give The Flying Club Cup a spin, but all others steer clear.
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