Plants and Animals are evolving. Their newest album, La La Land, is strewn with more hooks than a tackle box. It jangles with summery tunes and still has the guts to experiment here and there. The group’s full length debut, Parc Avenue, set the bar moderately high and it’s now safe to say that La La Land is the step in the right direction that they needed, successfully avoiding the all-too-common sophomore slump.

As if the Montreal music scene needed any more proof of its superiority…

Surely a few snarky doubters will deny that there could be songs herein that will ever top the silly exuberance of “Mercy,” the hushed crescendo of “Faerie Dance,” the brilliantly choral “Bye Bye Bye” or the goose-bump-inducing “Good Friend.” But La La Land is merely a continuation of the excellence Plants and Animals first introduced on their previous album.

“Tom Cruz” reintroduces us to their Sgt. Pepper guitar crunch coupled with the delightfully shaky harmonies of Warren C. Spicer, Nic Basque and Matthew “Woodman” Woodley, each doubling on guitar, guitar and drums, respectively. No bass? No problem! Plants and Animals have no need for low-end, flourishing in their higher ranges and adding the occasional synth track, string segment, or piano line to fill in the cracks. They may actually benefit from the lack of heaviness, their songs having an airiness about them that lifts the mind out of the dredges of the day. Songs such as “Kon Tiki,” a song that sounds like a Hawaiian version of Radiohead, and the resplendent “Swinging Bells” have a lightness to them that further challenges Newton’s law of gravitation.

And they certainly have a sense of humor, with lyrics and song titles that mock pop culture: “Undone Melody” (à la “Unchained Melody”) is a gorgeous piece that simultaneously channels Zeppelin-toned slide guitar and the ethereal qualities of Doves’ The Last Broadcast. “American Idol” pokes fun at our newest national craze, singing “I want to be your American Idol” in what could only be called a ‘pitchy’ style. “The Mama Papa,” clearly a summer hit waiting to happen, is as good as any of The Sea and Cake’s more upbeat tracks. And it just might feature a little cowbell for good measure.

“Game Shows” is perhaps the best example of their cultural commentary, a lovely, melancholy tune about two people watching mediocre television shows at the end of a long day. As they sing “It’s so good, it’s so easy,” strings and piano creep into the foreground to build and then fade into a cathartic outro that could have been written by The Band in their heyday.

The first half of “Fake It,” which should be the centerpiece of the album—and Plants and Animals heaviest venture to date—bounds forward with its elephantine rhythm and brazen strumming patterns while the second half flips back and forth between scale-climbing Rush grandiosity and distant Grizzly Bear-esque harmonies.

As the drowsy “Future from the 80s” winds down the band’s momentum, the listener is ready for the album to end. “Future from the 80s” is the weakest song on the album; not bad…just weak. While the vocoded vocals of the track’s refrain are appropriate to the song, it is oddly out of place in considering the album’s entirety. But this lapse only makes the last song more surprising—“Jeans Jeans Jeans” is a dramatic climax to the album that would make Pete Townsend weep with joy.

Plants and Animals have not reinvented the hook. They have not reinvented the pop song. And they haven’t reinvented classic rock. But they might as well have, as they pull the most essential ingredients from the best recipes of classic rock and modern indie music in stately fashion for a Thanksgiving feast of sound.

Track List:
1. Tom Cruz
2. Swinging Bells
3. American Idol
4. Undone Melody
5. Kon Tiki
6. Game Shows
7. The Mama Papa
8. Fake It
9. Celebration
10. Future from the 80s
11. Jeans Jeans Jeans