Opposing forces and contradictions are the name of the game of "Nowhere Faster", the most recent album from California's El Ten Eleven. Strong rhythm sections play contrary to intricate and gentle neoclassical phrasings, often delivered via woozy synths or math-rock-leaning guitars and bass. The 11 songs on the album are decorated with strings, adding a sheen of prettiness and an epic-level ambition.
The more acoustic-centric "A While Ago Alone" is the album's most commercially viable moment, delivering clean and emotionally concise bars, even as it manoeuvres around wonky bass licks. The bass is more steadfast on the instantly danceable "Last Night In The Kitchen", before veering into a noticeably more tense but no-less refined passage that makes one feel as though they are in a chase scene. There are times it seems El Ten Seven have to hold themselves back from making something too accessible or easily categorizable, such as on the album highlight "You Against You", a blistering surge of ambient rock that hides it hallmarks of feel-good and inspiring music behind a tempered wall of all-out execution. When they do let their guard down, like on the closing track "So It Goes", the result is effortlessly heart-warming.
Much like all journeys in life, there are ups and downs.
El Ten Eleven’s Nowhere Faster channels a restless, forward momentum across eight tracks, reflecting on the uneasy drive to keep moving even without a clear direction. Marked by new textures like strings and piano and shaped by their longest break to date, the album balances experimentation with introspection, circling themes of time, aging, and uncertainty with a sense of joy that has benefited from time and experience.
★★★