Department of Eagles - Archive 2003 - 2006 [2010][EAC,log,cue FL

Artist: Department of Eagles
Release: Archive 2003 - 2006
Released: 2010
Label: American Dust
Catalog#: dad112
Format: FLAC / Lossless / Log (100%) / Cue
Country: USA
Style: indie




01 Practice Room Sketch 1
02 Deadly Disclosure
03 While We're Young
04 Grand Army Plaza
05 Practice Room Sketch 2
06 Brightest Minds
07 Practice Room Sketch 3
08 Flip
09 Practice Room Sketch 4 (Tired Hands)
10 Golden Apple
11 Practice Room Sketch 5



Department of Eagles’ lovely 2008 album, In Ear Park, was such a breakthrough for Daniel Rossen and Fred Nicolaus that it could be easy to forget that not only did the duo have a body of work before its release, but they tried to record a second album years before. The straightforwardly named Archive 2003-2006 captures the attempts Department of Eagles made over those years to make the follow-up to The Cold Nose (aka The Whitey on the Moon LP). Despite the scattered nature of the recording sessions and the varying states of completion these songs are in, Rossen and Nicolaus found ways to make this more than just a slapped-together collection of odds and sods. The “Practice Room Sketches” -- ghostly traces of a piano melody here, a skeletal song there -- link together the more fleshed-out tracks and add an open-ended wistfulness to the whole affair. Surprisingly though, most of Archive’s songs are closer to finished than not, and several of them rival the tracks that made it onto Department of Eagles’ official albums. “Flip” and “While We’re Young”’s brisk, symphonic folk-pop have just as much hooky flair as “No One Does It Like You”; meanwhile, “Golden Apple”’s slowly unfolding space lullaby is so unique that it’s a shame it didn’t get the full Department of Eagles treatment. However, the band did recycle parts of these songs into other tracks: the banjo melody from the pretty but somewhat disjointed “Deadly Disclosure” ended up on the In Ear Park song “Balmy Night.” As always, the Grizzly Bear comparisons are inevitable, but Archive falls closer to Yellow House’s rustic experiments than to Veckatimest’s multifaceted dazzle (which makes sense, since Rossen joined the band in 2004, right in the middle of these sessions). Though songs like “Grand Army Plaza” and “Brightest Minds” -- both of which are great examples of Department of Eagles’ oddly nostalgic sound -- fell by the wayside, they’re too good not to be heard. Archive 2003-2006 is well worth a listen for Department of Eagles and Grizzly Bear fans, especially those intrigued by how albums get made -- or don’t get made, as the case may be..