In Case We Die

Architecture in Helsinki

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 12, 2005)
• Original Release Date: March 22, 2005
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Bar/None Records
• ASIN: B0007LPM78
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #46,952 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
This free-ranging octet from Australia has brought forth their second album and it's a veritable funhouse adventure. Experimental, but gently so, their diverse instrumentation and varied approaches to vocal presentations (theatrical character voices, choirs, rock band exuberance) make for a listening experience akin to someone's perfectly cerebral mix tape. The opening song alone sets the stage for all that follows, constructed like an overture, one theme and setting gives way to another. Much like the parable of three blind men trying to describe an elephant, if three different listeners heard three different songs from this wonderful album, there still would be no complete description possible. --David Greenberger

Product Description
Architecture In Helsinki hail from Fitzroy in Melbourne, and 'In Case We Die' is he anticipated follow up to their debut album, 'Fingers Crossed' from 2002. Includes the single "Do The Whirlwind". The band's musical arsenal is big, featuring instruments as diverse as analog synths and samplers, glockenspiel, tuba, clarinet, and recorder along with the more traditional drums, bass, and guitar. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nevereverdid, April 23, 2005

By	E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Smash together the Fiery Furnaces and the Arcade Fire, with a dash of the Polyphonic Spree's tweeness. That pretty much describes the sound of Architecture in Helsinki's second album, "In Case We Die." Well, fortunately these guys don't suffer from the sophomore slump.

This octet hails from Melbourne, but they sound a lot like the Furnaces, with their adventurous everything-but-the-kitchen-sink pop, handclaps and unpretentious bits and bobs. It's obvious from the start that this is no typical catchy pop album -- "Nevereverdid" is a bouncy maelstrom of twee guitar, desperate vocals and a shouted chorus.

"It'5" continues that trend, but then things switch gears into gently cluttered ballads -- expect piano, drums and accordion -- and unabashedly weird pop tunes with tambourines, synth, horns and rippling piano. There's even an Indian-flavoured ska/dance tune. All bets are off. All rules are broken here, and the results are never predictable.

Perhaps Architecture In Helsinki is often compared to the Fiery Furnaces because neither band fits easily into one category. "In Case We Die" is a head-scratcher -- it's too grounded to be twee, too bizarre to be pop, too soft to be rock, too straightforward to be psychedelica. And despite odd bits of new wave, there's no retro sound either.

Whatever it is, it's apparently dedicated to being fun and whimsical. Their pop music would be fun just because of its catchiness, but this band throws in every little pop flourish imaginable, and apparently every instrument they could get their hands on. One would expect a disaster, but somehow they manage to link all those sounds together.

A few songs initially seem over-the-top in their bubblegumness, but they manage to veer off into playfulness instead. Especially since none of the lyrics make sense -- except for the slightly dark finale ("Carve your name into my arm/cos I long to feel your name blood red"), the songwriting is what Lewis Carroll would have written, if he had been in a rock band. "Tonight the neon answers flare./Occasionally we stop and stare/past tiny paintings painted where/all the clouds were wrong."

A glorious little album full of crazy-quilt pop, "In Case We Die" is a triumph of indiepop insanity. It's crazy and lovin' it.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A pop album that flourishes with youthful exuberance., April 30, 2005

By	Chad Jenkins - See all my reviews

'In Case We Die' is the second full length album from Architecture in Helsinki, an underground favorite that critics don't like to admit they like. Not that I blame the critics; half the songs sound like the theme song for a children's cartoon. 'It'5', for instance, gives you the mental image of a bunch of ten year olds doing cartwheels in a playground. After the bubblegum-sounding verses, when the band screams shrilly in unison 'IT'S 5!' sounds like this is when they do the obligatory shot of the full cast smiling toward the camera. Many tracks have lightspeed vocals over fluffy piano melodies, and the lead vocalist sounds like a voice actor for Sesame Street. This *will* annoy a lot of listeners, but those it doesn't annoy should be able to enjoy the screwy playfulness of the whole affair, so long as they can open their mind to the possibility of enjoying such frivelous sounding music. There are also tracks such as 'In Case We Die (Parts 1-4)' that sound sort of like 80's bubblegum pop if those bands knew how to play instruments and were ten times more creative in capturing and embracing the youthfulness of the music they tried to play. I'm not saying you'll like this album, but if you could ever like an album that sounds like this, you'll love it.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Under The Quivers And Lines, April 18, 2006

By	Myles Byrne-Dunhill (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews

Musical honey that drips out of the universal beehive and pours into your head, coating both lobes of the brain
in a syrup of heart warming childhood melodies.
Architecture In Helsinki's album, In Case We Die, makes me happy in the fact that I never have to take
my ability of hearing for granted.
This band knows how to pull on your heartstrings, but not in an epic cinematic depressing way, that The Flaming Lips and
Mercury Rev somehow manage to create, but more emotionally epic in a happy and upbeat way within its catchiness.
The instrumental musicallity of this album could've replaced the soundtrack to Forrest Gump or American Beauty and I gurantee people would've walked
away from those movies touched on both ends of the emotinoal spectrum.
Extreme happiness and depression fused into one. That is the cure for life. The abitlity to balance yourelf out emotionally
and in spiritual ways that combine with the equilirbrium of nature and the earth.
Architecture In Helsinki has saved the world.