Rogue Wave Album: "Descended Like Vultures" Release Date:10/25/2005 Label: Sub Pop Rock-Rev Value: [6.5/10] Genre: Rock Styles: Indie Rock, Indie Pop, Lo-Fi Buy It

Tracklist:

1 Bird on a Wire (3:40)
2 Publish My Love (3:43)
3 Salesman at the Day of the Parade (2:36)
4 Catform (3:12)
5 Love's Lost Guarantee (4:44)
6 10:1 (3:20)
7 California (4:06)
8 Are on My Side (4:19)
9 Medicine Ball (1:54)
10 You (5:46)
11 Temporary (2:45)

Album Credits

Jeff Kleinsmith Design
Patrick Spurgeon Bass, Percussion, Accordion, Piano, Autoharp, Cymbals, Drums, Glockenspiel, Guitar (Electric), Bowed Saw, Casio, Radio, Mixing, Bass (Upright), Bass Pedals, Organ (Pump), Engineer, Xylophone, Group Member, Vocals, Tambourine, Organ (Hammond), Drums (Bass), Chimes
Emily Lazar Mastering
Gram Lebron Percussion, Vocals, Group Member, Wurlitzer, Fender Rhodes, Vibraphone, Drums, Guitar (Electric)
Bill Racine Trumpet, Mixing, Drum Programming, Engineer, Producer, Organ (Hammond)
Zach Rogue Synthesizer, Guitar (Acoustic), Casio, Piano Strings, Wurlitzer, Mixing, Organ (Pump), Engineer, Producer, Vocals, Organ (Hammond), Guitar (Electric), Bass, Piano, Percussion, Group Member
Evan Farrell Bass, Piano, Percussion, ?, Lap Steel Guitar, Group Member, Wurlitzer, Vocals
Aerielle Levy Cello
Gene Park Viola
John Goodmanson Mixing

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review by:Allmusic
reviewer: Tim Sendra
Album Value: (3.5/5)

Rogue Wave's second album is at its heart no great departure from their first. Like Out of the Shadow, Descended Like Vultures is indie rock through and through. There isn't a moment that doesn't feel influenced, borrowed, or previously released by Death Cab, Elliott Smith, Yo La Tengo, Lou Barlow, and so on. Luckily there also isn't a moment that's not tuneful, exciting, or ingratiating; it's second-hand but runs just like new. Indeed, sweet vocal harmonies, melodies that hook you instantly, and arrangements that envelop you in their gooey goodness are still the backbone of the Rogue Wave sound. And again there is a nice mix of rockers ("10:1," "Publish My Love"), mellow and intimate acoustic ballads ("California," "Temporary"), and moody pop tunes ("Catform," "Are You on My Side"). This time out Zach Rogue is joined by a full band, though it's mainly Pat Spurgeon who plays jack of all by providing able backing on drums, guitars, keys, bass, and autoharp. This reliance on other people doesn't tamper with the winning formula much, though the production does. Unlike the first album, which had a homey, lo-fi energy, this one feels shiny and professional like it was cut by real musicians doing it for real in a real studio. The guitars are thick and layered, the drums upfront and loud, the lead vocals very lush and reverbed. It gives the album's big ballads like the opening "Bird on a Wire" or the ebbing-and-flowing "You" a naturally epic feel that other bands have to try way too hard to achieve. Unfortunately, on the rest of the record it adds an extra layer of studio realness that takes away most of the intimate charm the group had so much of previously. With Descended Like Vultures, Rogue Wave have become just another indie rock band, one that has delivered a strong album without a weak song on it, but a real band just the same. Hopefully, the people who fell in love with the first album will stick with Rogue Wave and see through the shine to the substance, because it is there and the album is good, just in a different way.

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review by:Pitchfork
reviewer: Brian Howe, October 26, 2005
Album Value: (7.8/10)

As a member of the Desoto Reds, Zach Rogue was working a crushing 70 hours/week at a web development company, frustrated, and desperate for change. Then a round of layoffs saved Rogue like a last-minute call from the governor and he beat a retreat to New York to see what he could accomplish on his own. Clutching a sheaf of the delicately odd pop songs he'd written but had no outlet for in Desoto Reds, he holed up in the studio with his friend Bill Racine and together the two began spontaneously cranking out the tracks that would become Out of the Shadow, an album that would earn Rogue Wave a Sub Pop deal-- and an endless parade of Shins comparisons. The spirit of adventure and freedom that accompanied Rogue's life-change was apparent in the record, which featured wispy, spectral tunes, somewhere between Simon & Garfunkel and Yo La Tengo, embroidered with intricate details.

Rogue assembled a band to take the songs on the road, and this quartet-- which includes Gram LeBron, Pat Spurgeon, and Evan Farrell-- is collectively responsible for Rogue Wave's sophomore outing, Descended Like Vultures. As such, it's reasonable to expect a record very different from the debut, which was penned entirely by Rogue. The first single from the new album, "10:1", confirms a sea change: Where the atmospheric debut laced cloudy melodies with quiet traces of heat lightning, "10:1" is a crashing thunderbolt. The thin, melodic contour lines that primarily structured Out of the Shadow become barely discernible underpinnings on this track, subsumed in raucously cartwheeling synths and returning producer Bill Racine's bracing guitar manipulation. The only vestige of the old Rogue Wave is Rogue's voice.

Has the band that relied on off-kilter charm forsaken their chilly moderation for heat-seeking rock? You know, sort-of-ish: "10:1" is a bit of a red herring. The main difference between the two albums has more to do with volume than style. The production now has more depth, and you're more likely to hear subtle (or not-so-subtle, in the case of "10:1") filters on the vocals. Out of the Shadow seemed to emanate from very far away, but Descended Like Vultures is more visceral and immediate, although the loud tracks are largely tempered and controlled. Once the disappointment that it's not a Leonard Cohen cover fades, the album's opening track, "Bird on a Wire", is a charming introduction to the louder side of Rogue Wave: Crisp drum rolls and strident bleats buffet the melody toward an outsized, lighter-waving chorus. The driving mid-tempo guitars that open "Publish My Love" are contrasted with an acoustic arpeggio that would've been the song's stopping point on the first album. The excellent "Love's Lost Guarantee" profits from the same contrast, revealing a surprising but totally sensible Death Cab for Cutie affinity as it alternates darkly twinkling passages with romantically crashing choruses. (...)

Full Review

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review by:PopMatters
reviewer: Justin Cober-Lake, 1 November 2005
Album Value: [6/10]

Rogue Wave's debut album Out of the Shadow was full of memorable songs, all of which you immediately forget. It remains the type of album that you say you love but forget to listen to until someone, probably a guy like Zach Braff, mentions that he likes it, and then you play it and enjoy it for a few days and put it on the shelf and forget about it, unless another someone asks you if you're a fan of Rogue Wave and then you say you are. None of which means that album isn't any good. It's above serviceable -- it's just that it's that kind of indie pop that works great for one-offs (unless you're on Flying Nun and it magically becomes fantastic).

Led by another Zach (Rogue, of course), but with more influence from the band that formed around last year's tour and stuck around, Rogue Wave sets out to make a disc that you'll not only like, but remember. By and large, they succeed on Descended Like Vultures, and they do it by getting bigger without losing any of their intimate charm.

It won't get the attention of single "10:1" or album-opener "Bird on a Wire", but "Publish My Love" epitomizes what the band does. The track opens with electric guitars just a little too noisy to jangle, which drop out for a smooth, quick verse. Rogue's voice stays steady as the band fills back in for the chorus, and the guitars return to full force immediately afterward. The shifting sounds add more texture (or at least a rockier texture) than you might expect. The structure repeats enough to catch in your head (and the chorus is just several announcements of "You can never publish my love"), but the transitions, as well as the fluctuating lyrical parts, keep it interesting and lead logically to the song's closing climax.

Rogue Wave uses this sort of techniques to fill their album with quality songs. "Catform" alternates mood more than texture, remaining dark throughout, and "Love's Lost Guarantee" brightens the sonics just slightly, but adds some overdriven guitar to keep an edge. These kinds of small touches make the poppier hooks of the album more engaging, and stickier than the tracks on Out of the Shadow.

Songs like "Love's Lost Guarantee" also show that Rogue Wave has a harder side. "Bird on a Wire" hints at this side of the group. It begins with a sunny little riff, but adds vocal effects on the last syllable of each of the verse's lines, drawing the phrase out and creating easily-released tension. The noises and effects continue as Rogue sings a fine melody. The production teeters on overbearing, but doesn't tip over, allowing the track to fill with sound but not to overflow..(...)

Full Rev

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review by: Prefixmag
reviewer: John MacDonald
Album Value: (3.5/5)

The temptation is to start name-dropping. We could start talking about how Zach Rogue’s vocals split the difference between Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Mangum and the Shins’ James Mercer, how the guitars twinkle and spark like Radiohead’s glory days, how Rogue’s tunes have the plasticine sheen of Death Cab for Cutie and the same weepy sincerity, and how naming your band after your last name is kinda lame. But I’ve heard that would be lazy journalism — and, whatever, these guys deserve a bit more from us anyway.


The band’s second full-length from Sup Pop, Descended Like Vultures, follows an impressive debut — and success story. In short, Rogue gets dismissed from his dot-com job (poor guy), splits for New York, records an album alone, flies home to Oakland, changes his last name, finds a band and some friends, finishes the album, releases it alone, and gets picked up by a big independent label — all within a few years. If Out of the Shadow, his debut, is the result of years spent staring at cubicle walls, we have some reason to celebrate the dot-com flame-out.


But whereas Rogue began his corporate exodus alone, Descended Like Vultures finds him and his able compatriots integrated and working as a band. Despite their twists and turns (sonic and otherwise), the songs here are fully accomplished — unafraid of comparisons and sure of their intent. “Publish My Love,” possibly the best of the bunch, explodes in a mess of shoegaze before settling into a choruses that stand upright to love’s low-pressure winds; “10:1” pummels a two-note Hammond B3 melody to danceable oblivion. Even when things hush up, Rogue Wave keeps things interesting. “California” has Rogue’s elegant tenor laughing at the land of milk and honey as he sings “screw California and the friends that are never there” over warm acoustic guitar.


The sanitized production can be a bit of a stumbling block, and Rogue occasionally gets ahead of himself with his high-spire vocals, but Descended Like Vultures is by and large not the sophomore slump such and such and so and so were expecting. With few exceptions, bands that play like bands are more interesting than songwriters fronting freelancers. Thankfully, Rogue Wave is beginning to sound like the former.

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review by: Stylus
reviewer: Evan McGarvey, 2005-10-25
Album Value: (C)

isk isn’t the best game for honing your sense of geography. It splits the continental United States into two regions: Eastern and Western, though I’d argue the major indie-rock labels do pretty much the same thing.

When you get an album from Matador (East) or Touch and Go (Midwest) or Sub Pop (West) you tend to presume some things before the disk even touches the laser of a player. Rogue Wave and their second album Descended Like Vultures are as delightfully left-y as anything in Sup Pop’s catalogue and sprinkled with moments of Laurel Canyon production and expectedly pastoral acoustics.

The music on this album, much like this year’s anticipatory EP 10:1, is worn-in California pop, juiced with paisley guitars who sizzle more than thrash. There’s plenty of love too; the straight-ahead, personal pop boulders like “Bird On A Wire” are crisp and earnest.

Lead singer/guitarist Zach Rogue uses a quietly stained Elliot Smith-bleat and matches it up with terse acoustic guitars. This product is dusted with the salt of the Pacific, cold winters in San Francisco, and a refreshingly fresh pallet of soft/loud ennui. How else could they string together chants of “Are you on / My side?” or legitimately title a song “California,” and play it straight?

But even someone who shies away from the Yo La Orange County left-coast rock will find plenty to admire here. The songs are soundly emotive without being hungry and “universal.” The carnival organ and galloping drums on “10:1” don’t announce themselves with bombast. “Publish My Love” (rubbish title notwithstanding) subtly pushes Rogue’s spoken-word-metric wail under big, evenly produced guitar fuzz. It’s the most aggressive song on an acoustic, enduringly enduring set of small-ball rock songs.

Descended Like Vultures snuggles down between Wolf Parade’s Apologies To The Queen Mary and Modest Mouse’s 2004 release, Good News For People Who Like Bad News as a competent, half-slapped together, half-methodic slice of evolved indie-rock. Not as rural and weathered as the former, not as pushy a grab-bag as the latter (though all three albums do have mystifying, undergraduate titles).(...)

Full Rev

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review by: Drownedinsound reviewer: Lianne Steinberg, 31/10/2005 Album Value: (4/5) Forgive me, for I have gone about my daily business without Rogue Wave in my life. It’s daft really as Sub Pop have had them in their bosom since 2003 when mainman Josh Rogue delivered debut Out Of The Shadow. But somehow they’ve managed to sit just under the radar. But with Death Cab For Cutie busy claiming space in American teen soaps and Guided By Voices finally clocking out of existence, there’s been an aching gap in the space-time continuum of bittersweet, foreboding indie rock.

However, the intimacy of Descended Like Vultures is instant, so much so that you can picture singer/guitarist Zach Rogue sat on his kitchen floor, with his morning coffee cooling as he messes around on a 4-track.

Opener Bird On A Wire has a gracefully crowing guitar that runs in at the final line of each verse, adding a sense of madness to a simply delicate song. The arrival of Publish My Love kicks in the killer rushes, lifting melodies up to the heavens and falling back into gentle acoustic breaks. Drums boom around like gaseous planets and guitars pick out the simplest celestial melodies. Part confessional, part observational, all of it has a wistful west-coast vibe. Are You On My Side spookily works its way around guitars and washes of harmonies whilst asking a lover for a fresh start. Medicine Ball is reminiscent of Life’s Rich Pageant-era REM, rolling through the dusky backwaters, echoing strange myths. Rogue’s voice has the ability to shift from a countryish Neil Young falsetto to the gritty tenderness of Elliot Smith.

Descended Like Vultures has none of the menace that the title suggests, but instead there’s plenty of distress, trepidation and steady reflection. It’s full of the minute anxieties of life that keep you awake in the early hours, but set to some of the most life-affirming sounds you’ll have heard for a long time

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