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Yet despite the melancholy mood, We’re On Your Side is far from depressing. Slaraffenland possess a wistfully melodic knack akin to The Beach Boys if they’d never managed to get off the Sloop John B, and there is much to admire in the multi-faceted arrangements.
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MojoSlaraffenland are a complete surprise. Unfettered yet poptuneful, they harmonize constantly--with a melodic cool, more churchy than surfy--but plough those vocal lines into dense, dynamic texture with fierce drums marching as to war. [Jun 2010, p.103]
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It's experimental music, to be sure, but it doesn't conflate experimentation with alienation.
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While it at least confesses that there’s a reason for the band to state it’s on your side—an admission of bad things in the face of a strong insistence that art not harsh anyone’s mellow—the album acts as a sort of side step to those bad things rather than a head-on address. Music this consistently gorgeous deserves a little better.
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There aren’t really any tracks that stand out the way 'I’m a Machine' did on "Sunshine," but there aren’t any weak links here either.
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It will not blow you away and, though well balanced, it's not a 'dipper' in that proceedings are constant and hand-picking the best selections does a disservice to the remainder, which complete a strong but not astounding record.