Aan Loses More than a “Shadow”

The center of Portland, Oregon’s five-piece Aan (Amor ad nauseam) is Bud Wilson, a musician versed in synth, echoes, and the other accoutrements of electronic pop. Wilson knows what he’s doing with these tools, but yet we struggle to find the freshness on this third full-length. There are Wilson’s dreamy vocals, a confident pace, and a fair balance of electronica woven together, but the whole is less than the sum of these parts.

Our pick of the litter is “Truly Massive.” Things seem to fall into place easier on their single, tied together with a good sense of melody, moreso than the other songs. It’s not a truly brilliant single, it suffices, but we still have to look at the rest of the album. And the other songs here are generally “no”s. The opener, “Cause and Effect,” opens as idiosyncratically as it can muster, with an intentionally clumsy rhythm on echo-y bass, and comes off as forced as that post-hipster guy in the corner wearing a distressed band shirt with a sequin cape. Trying too hard? Perhaps. Does this man exist? He does now, and doesn’t seem to go away on this album. The tragedy is that the rest of the songs on Losing My Shadow quickly fall by the wayside; a shadow at least sticks with you.

Our ear has spun this up a few times, and yet almost nothing sticks in our memory. Pretty unnoticeable; take a pass.

Check out Aan on their official site.