Frankie Cosmos "Vessel"
Imagine that your father is an Oscar winner, and that your mom was in Gremlins AND Gremlins 2, both movies better than any Oscar winner could dream of being. Then, imagine before more talented than both of them. That's the case for Greta Kline, frontwoman and driving force behind the Frankie Cosmos. Kline and her band have released their third full-length album, Vessel, the latest offering for what has become one of the best indie outfits going.
Greta Kline
The Frankie Cosmos project began as a lo-fi, but prolific, way for Kline to put music into the world. It was effectively a solo entity, and it was easy to just let the music, as good as it was, drift into the air. The songs were short and had the classic "bedroom pop" vibe to them. Then, after years of dropping song after song on Bandcamp, she released the album Zentropy, a real step forward for Kline as a musician. It's not quite all killer, no filler, but it's close.
In 2016, the band release Next Thing, which was my favorite album of the year. Kline emerged as a wonderful songwriter and lyricist, creating songs that I was able to deeply connect to, despite the fact she was barely in her 20s at the time. "On the Lips" remains one of my favorite songs in recent years, even though it could only be sparser if you turned it into an acapella ditty. The songs on Next Thing are beautiful, but simple, and it turned the band into an instant favorite.
However, that's the past, and Vessel is the present. Living up to Next Thing was going to be a daunting challenge for Kline. Her precocious stage is behind her. She's now merely a woman in her mid-20s making music like so many others before her. However, Vessel shows that she is clearly growing as both a woman and a musician.
I will say right now that Vessel isn't quite on the same level as Next Thing. I want to mention that at this point to get it out of the way, because I don't want that statement to be viewed as a negative. Next Thing is amazing. Vessel is really good. It's my favorite album of 2018 to this point, though we are still in the early stages. After listening to it once I immediately played it again, and was happy to find that the album had grown on me even in that short period of time.
Vessel is clearly the product of Kline and her mind, but the album is an evolution for the band.
Vessel is clearly the product of Kline and her mind, but the album is an evolution for the band. After years of putting out work by herself, or with a makeshift band, the non-Kline members of Frankie Cosmos have stabilized and become a more important aspect of the sound. Voices other than Kline's pop up more frequently. The album has a more collaborative vibe. Of course, if you love Frankie Cosmos, the draw is Kline, so whether or not this is a good thing is debatable.
As a fan of lo-fi indie rock, the depth of the sound on Vessel is not necessarily a step forward, though I still love its feel. The drumming, in particular, stood out to me. Kline still knows how to put together incredibly catchy music. Even sitting at my computer, headphones upon my ears, I was grooving and swaying. Her guitar is infectious. She also still has an affinity for plowing through songs. Vessel stuffs 18 of them into 33 minutes.
Kline has said a lot of the album is about making music, and maybe that's there. She has a tendency as a lyricist to alternate between straightforward and obtuse, and I prefer the former. Music is clearly vital to Kline, though her relationship to it seems complicated, but it's also not something many of us can relate to. Still, it's nice to have an album that's not entirely about love and relationships. I mean, that's fine. It's deeply relatable and apparently on everybody's mind all the fucking time. Otherwise, musicians wouldn't be working their stuff out in song constantly. However, variety is the spice of life, and the spice of music.
Lyrically, Vessel is a step down for from Next Thing, which is weird. She's maturing as a musician, and as a person, but her lyrics have made a lateral move at best. Nothing grabs me like the lyrics from Next Thing or even Zentropy. Then again, maybe I'm partially the problem. Maybe I don't want Kline to be more complex. Maybe I want her to remain simplistic. Maybe I just want to hear "On the Lips" over and over.
All that being said, and my minor quibbles aside, I still recommend Vessel. I'm just not shouting about it from the mountaintops like with previous Frankie Cosmos outings. There was a period of time where I listened to Zentropy every day for, like, a month. That's not going to happen with Vessel. There is no song that jumps out to me as one I want to put on all my future playlists. That's partially because the album feels more of a piece than a series of songs, but also indicates that none of them are truly stellar. They are all just really good. She hits double after double instead of hitting the occasional home run.
If you love indie rock, though, you need to check out Vessel. Kline is way too talented to be ignored. Even when she isn't at her best she's better than most.
