Album Review : Logan Lynn From Pillar to Post (2009, Beat the World)

Logan Lynn is a Portland Electro-pop artist who has been recently signed to the Dandy Warhols' label, Beat The World. I may be a freak of nature because although a Portland resident and NW native, I have never really listened to the Dandy Warhols. I have heard of them, though, of course. However, enough about that, because this review is about Logan Lynn's forthcoming record, From Pillar To Post. I experienced mixed feelings about this album. A surface description - Logan Lynn combines mainly electronic music tracks with storytelling lyrics, mainly about love, loss, and feeling sad or confused about said topics, in the vein of The Postal Service or whatever else the kids are calling it nowadays.
Pros : The musical aspect as a whole is super good, combining a catchy beat with varied melodies and interesting sounds that sometimes lean more towards Boards of Canada (pretty much the only "IDM" type thing I listen to, but I like them a LOT, so this is a compliment.) than your average pop song, and also the whole album sounds good, as in well produced, catchy, and radio-ready.
Cons : For my taste, sometimes a little too produced. Especially the vocals - on a lot of tracks they have that too-perfect, slightly-vocoded sound, which is obviously a stylistic choice, but kinda weirds me out.

My favourite tracks on this album were the short ones that seem more like "bumper" tracks than actual songs, but showcase Lynn's creativity well. "Prey on the Power" and "I Have To Do it" take spoken word source material and add a musical track behind it, and "To Bed, Up The Wooden Mountain", is purely instrumental. They're all about a minute and half long each and pure gold.

Out of the full-length songs on the album, standout tracks for me were "Bottom Your Way to the Top" and "The Dotted Line", for their excellent mood and instrumentals - though for the life of me I can't figure out what Bottom Your Way.. is supposed to be about, but it seems like it might be dirty? with Feed Me To The Wolves coming in a clean third for being damn catchy. "Write it on my left arm" and "Bleed Him Out" were the only ones that came up a little too emo for me, but on his Myspace, Lynn describes himself as "emotronic" so I guess I should have known what to expect.

In closing, I can see Logan Lynn's From Pillar To Post gracing the MP3 players of misunderstood teens everywhere in a few months, as well as those adults who think they're too sophisticated for that kind of thing, but still can't help bopping along when it comes on the jukebox. For music snobs, Lynn would fall under the category of "guilty pleasure" - but one with good taste and influences whose work is a cut above most others in his style.