PORTUGAL. THE MAN play the Opera House October 18. See listing Rating: NNN
It’s taken six albums for a major label to finally catch on to Portugal. The Man. It’s not hard to discern what Warner subsidiary Atlantic Records sees in them. Lightweight glam-psych melodies, big singalong choruses and a palatable degree of eccentricity leave the Alaska-bred band poised for popular success.
In The Mountain In The Cloud should get them there. Though the band’s known to jam onstage, most songs keep structures tight. All but the epic set closer Sleep Forever clock in at under four and a half minutes. And though Portugal’s progressive tendencies are still on display, they’re mostly underplayed in service of rafter-reaching melodies. (The fact that the catchy You Carried Us cribs from Oasis’s Don’t Look Back In Anger reinforces this point.)
Still, despite interesting bits of psychedelic texture, the album floats around your consciousness without making much of an impression. It’s pleasant, but not particularly memorable.
Top track: Got It All (This Can’t Be Living Now)