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Beirut's gypsy rock wins gold
By Joshua Smith
jsmith293@mscd.edu

Beirut’s new album The Flying Club Cup is most defi nitely characteristic of their past efforts, which acts as both its main problem, as well as its unique charm.

Inspired by his travels in Europe, where he was exposed to Balkan gypsy music, 21-year-old Zach Condon creates remarkably engaging and expressive music for someone so young. With the release of The Flying Club Cup, Beirut has raised the score to two albums, an EP, a smattering of singles and a compilation of appearances in just over a year – an impressive feat for any band. The flipside of this prolific output is that the body of work sound largely similar, due to the extremely focused point of influence. Depending on how the music of Beirut strikes you, this lack of variance in sound could be positive or negative.

On The Flying Club Cup, what has advanced is the expansiveness of sound due to the addition, of a nine-member band, led by Condon. Though all the credit can’t be given to the bands frontman – what, with members such as Heather Trost from A Hawk and a Handsaw – and there is no shortage of talent backing Condon’s creations. First appearing as the full band on the Lon Gisland EP, the ensemble’s sound has tightened and become more refi ned, with the swelling orchestral aspect of the band’s gypsy sound being more pronounced and epic on their newest outing.

This effusive quality is evidenced on songs such as “A Sunday Smile,” a slow moving, waltz of a song that builds slowly as violins and horns glide along one another, and climaxes with a clashing chorus of voices marching triumphantly toward the uplifting crescendo. The simplicity of structure evidenced occasionally on earlier releases is totally absent from The Flying Club Cup, as even seemingly minimal songs such as “The Penalty,” mainly composed of mandolin and Condon’s vocals, eventually erupt into a rollicking, orchestral wall of sound.

Beirut is the sounds of the Old World, clothed in modern accoutrements, giving the music a multitude of access to a sound seldom heard on our shores, and for that alone it’s worth the exploration. But with the release of so much in so little time, one is left wondering if The Flying Club Cup is a sign of growing evolving sound, or the last, brilliant hurrah of a one trick pony.