Nashville indie-pop/brood-rock trio Safari Room released its second full-length album, Complex House Plants, in May 2022, to follow up 2020’s Look Me Up When You Get There. Complex House Plants is a mature continuance of both the early, introductory style and experimental breadth of 2018 debut EP Actual Feelings, as well as the direction taken towards ’90s indie-rock influences in Look Me Up. All-in-all with Complex House Plants, though, Safari Room is just taking the proper next step from what they’ve already established while “coming together in the face of adversity and finding self-love” in order to groove out with this project, difficult to label “sophomoric.”
Complex House Plants‘ style takes off in “Small Victories,” as a jazz trio’s, mid-tempo, breath-holding hi-hat timing and brushed snare are accompanied by muted, chimed, ’80s-style electric guitar in the same vein as Satriani’s “Always With Me, Always With You.” The groove sets up Safari Room vocalist Alec Koukol to channel the croon of a slightly nasal Rufus Wainwright mixed with the confidence of Half Alive vocalist Josh Taylor before Safari Room’s three-piece instrumentation crashes together to replicate Built to Spill’s “Carry the Zero” fuzz effect for an early bridge, combining multiple influences from ’90s-inspired indie pop to the present day within the first song.
At this early point in the album, track composition is already, and surprisingly, noteworthy. It’s like hearing “Tragic Kingdom” (the song) for the first time at the end of that No Doubt album.
Koukol’s disciplined and confident vocals are the only anchor Safari Room has to keep from flying off emo. Complex House Plants was very much penned anthemic, perhaps over-thinking, which can produce maelstroms in the mind and the overall lyrics. Fortunately, though, Safari Room delves out simplistic, haymaker-zen advice, as found in the swishing night locomotive “All Is Said and Done,” as well as the blatantly instructional “Speak Slower;” both pave the way for the sweetly produced “Best of Me” to be the shoo-in single of the album. The lyricized life confusion accompanied by some hyping sax in “IKWYT,” featuring saxophonist Jeff Coffin on the reed, would have been another shoo-in single as a highest high point and most experimental track on the album, but still, theatrically depressing in a Gin Blossoms, pandemic-project kind of way. There’s solid work and emphasis on the groove, just deceptively, borderline emo.
Complex House Plants can be found streaming at Spotify, Bandcamp, YouTube Music, Pandora, Apple and Soundcloud. Safari Room is one of the floating DRKMTTR Collective bands, too. Find live show dates and updates through their FB and Instagram band pages, on bandsintown.com (or the app), as well as safariroomband.com, where vinyl copies of Look Me Up When You Get There can also be found.
