By: Matthew Fox

Rating: 4 out of 5

If you’re looking for an album to pop in your car stereo to blast while driving down the road on a hot sunny day, don’t stop at Other Lives’ Tamer Animals. Contrarily, if you’ve been in a contemplative mood and been searching for a new record to buy that secretly gets into your subconscious without being abrasive, get this album as quickly as possible. Tamer Animals is a surprising treat for anyone who enjoys slower music with a tasteful ambience.

Other Lives have a pretty interesting sound. With atmospheric instrumental breakdowns similar to Sigur Ros and vocal stylings akin to both Interpol and The Killers, there are multiple elements that express the band’s influences. Also, their Oklahoma roots are exposed in the Western/Alternative Country-esque sound achieved on songs like “For 12” and “Old Statues”.

One of my favorite things about the album as a whole are the instrumental explosions that tend to follow choruses. In “Dust Bowl III,” the song’s final word, “find,” serves as the sole catalyst for an eruption of music that follows, throwing us into a blend of horns, hollowed-out drums, and a chorus of voices, guiding us gently into the next song.

The soundscape nature of the album, with dense orchestration and slow movements, creates an almost cinematic feel, as if you should be watching a film to accompany it. While listening to “Desert,” I can’t help but feel like I’m James Bond (Sean Connery style), traveling through the Sahara on a top secret mission (this is a compliment, by the way). Also, the intro, “Dark Horse,” helps bring the listener into a more fitting mood to listen to the record as a whole, as does the outro, “Heading East,” which serves as a solid summary of the last half of the record.

Overall, Tamer Animals is the perfect album to put you to sleep, but not sleep-inducing in a boring way. It is crafted in a way that makes one feel as if he or she is sinking slowly into a bed of feathers, but all the while keeping focus honed and alert. Other Lives demand our listening attention, but somehow manage to also put us in a trance-like state of mind. They have achieved a special form of ambience that is very rarely found in music, which is highly applaudable. A few track suggestions to check out from this album are “Tamer Animals”, “Desert”, and “Old Statues”.

Matthew Fox lives in Nashville, TN. He drives a Jeep, frequently looks up cute pictures of animals online, and once won $15 off a lottery ticket. An archive of his blog posts can be found at foxtalks.wordpress.com.