Strange Geometry

The U.K.’s Clientele specialize in a somber melancholia that immediately conjures up the feeling of an afternoon tea observing an English rain. The band’s obvious key ‘60s influences — Left Banke, Marianne Faithfull, Beatles, Kinks — are set back and relaxed to loping rhythms that never feel the need to modernize or speed up to today’s technology. Instead, singer Alasdair MacLean recounts his aimless wanderings — the ever-present rain — with seductive melodies that have the same breezy feeling as the images that go fleeting past. Much like Trembling Blue Stars’ Robert Wratten, MacLean is a lovelorn slacker who uses music to create the romance that always seems to be slipping through his fingers. His group’s third album is higher-fi than the debut (*Suburban Light*) and less monochromatic than the follow-up (*The Violet Hour*). The addition of strings to the band’s mix of jangly guitars, pianos, and organs adds a soothing touch, as the austere beauty of “I Can’t Seem to Make You Mine” bears out.

When I was in high school a friend drove a 1970 Impala that his gearhead dad had kept garaged for ...

Rebounding after the ever-so-slightly samey feel of The Violet Hour, Strange Geometry reinvigorates the Clientele's literate, wistful indie pop with fresh doses of emotion, invention, and wit.