THESE UNITED STATES
A PICTURE OF THE TWO OF US AT THE GATE TO THE GARDEN OF EDEN
WORDS: JAY LOWE

These United States’ debut album A Picture of the Two of Us at the Gate to the Garden of Eden is absolutely astonishing. You’d never be able to guess that TSU really only has two core members (namely, Jesse Elliott and David Strackany, Elliott being the main creative drive) and enlists musicians from widely disparate musical backgrounds for recording and performance. On tour, TSU is a new army of musicians every night, using members and instruments from supporting bands to build their show, ensuring that you’ll never see them perform the same way twice. They’ve performed in tons of cities states in from North Carolina to Washington State, recruiting musicians at every stop.

The brand of American music that D.C.’s TSU brings to the scene crosses the line from twangy, rollicking folk music to straight indie-electronic goodness. A Picture of the Two of Us starts out slowly and quietly with “Preface: Painless,” but you’ll be kicking yourself when you realize how full the arrangement really is; it’s an appropriate opener for an incredibly rich album. When you listen to the album’s stand out single (Jesse Elliott tells me it’s quite a doozy to arrange live), “First Sight,” you really have to concentrate your aural abilities to fully recognize all the parts of the sonic wave washing over you. The softly dropped pearls and steady percussion carry the baggage on the lyrical journey from love’s first sight to its bittersweet end.

“The Business” exemplifies a much more twangy, folky sound. Evoking the swag of ambition with its lyrics and jaunty lines, this bluesy tune tells the story of every man’s quest for self-improvement toward the greater goal of scoring a once uninterested (but perhaps now piqued) woman.

Elliott’s soft and fragile vocals rob you of your breath at their first aural appearance and keep you attached to this album throughout your listen. His scratchy voice effects (at different times) the likes of Beck, Dinosaur Jr’s J. Mascis and Ireland’s Simple Kid.

This album is quite refreshing; in a scene where eccentric, extraneous instruments and bands approaching ten members is commonplace, it’s comforting to know that there are people like Elliott and Strackany capable (and extraordinarily so) of organizing and arranging what would otherwise be a superfluous set of sounds. At only 36 minutes and perhaps just as many stylistic and musical twists, you definitely won’t get bored with this album. In fact, you’ll probably feel the frantic and immediate urge to check this band out live, like I did. A Picture of the Three of us at the Gate to the Garden of Eden is, I hope, the first in a great series of albums from These United States.