Fredericton-born, Montréal-based indie rockers LAPS have dropped their latest album Soon Not Often In It, an aptly named ensemble of LAPS’ haphazard bops. Earlier this year, we were given a teaser in the form of “Brunch,” an acoustic jigsaw of shifting melodies and tempos. Their latest album branches that style out into a plethora of satisfying results.
Listeners may raise an eyebrow at the album’s title and its disregard for grammatical heed, and then smile and chuckle to themselves as they realize that three of the 12 tracks are titled “Soon,” “Not Often,” and “In It.”
“Not Often” honours “Brunch” the most out of the three, going through three different guitar patterns before dipping into a dreamy lull. After a few moments of this downtime, they pull a 180 and go right back to their dynamic string patterns.
“Soon” opens with a similar mysterious, relaxing lull, but then, out of nowhere, the track… stays consistent throughout? Indeed, the slow-paced tune that we’re greeted with doesn’t deviate from itself much at all. As much as we like the multi-melody tunes that are characteristic of LAPS, “Soon” is a welcome digression into a tune that you may enjoy having coffee with.
“In It” brings those crazy arrangements back, albeit with more sporadic transitions, allowing us to spend more time with whatever the band throws at us.
Generally, tracks “Brunch,” “Not Often” and “In It” follow a pattern: a recognizable acoustic jive that dances with the band’s liberal approach to melodies and tempos. It is as though each track is a mini mix-and-match project, where every 16 bars can be decided by the toss of a dice.
“It’s like birthing a fully grown human with highly-developed artistic sensibilities,” the band stated when asked about the album.
“It’s like a mathematical formula; do we need to add? Subtract? Et cetera?”