You Are All I See

2011 is a year for strong albums in general, and You Are All I See deserves to be ranked among the best.

The glitchy future R&B of Playing House is evidence of Active Child's depth, but it's the emotional blood-letting of tracks like dark hymnal Way Too Fast which gives this record a gravitas most popular music never achieves. [Jan 2012, p.92]

Getting close to these chilly, inscrutable songs is like trying to hug statuary, but their marbled beauty is impressive all the same. [Dec. 2011 p. 123]

Odd missteps apart You Are All I see turns out to be one of the year's boldest, most beautiful debuts. [Nov 2011, p.81]

You Are All I See may be surreal and even hard work at times, but this is a work of sheer beauty whose contours are worth exploring in depth.

Instead of guitar worship, Active Child's generation of fey Romantics have suckled on synthesizer worship, more varied sounds, and a post-"Planet Rock" planet where electronica and rap/R&B music interweave constantly.

With the influx of worshippers only getting stronger these days, Active Child is a welcome addition to the pulpit.

Both fluid and ornate, this is a densely produced, subtly assured introduction to an artist who has the tools to grow into something more.

His words are layers of palpable atmospherics; subtle and pleading at times, worried and demanding at others, mainly steeped in a falsetto that rarely wears thin - note "rarely" - it occasionally causes the eardrums to glaze over.

Taken together, You Are All I See still can't help but feel like an old cathedral--easy to admire in awe, but somehow cold and remote; hard to really make your own.

The epic emoting can feel a tad weighty towards the end, but you're left with a solid impression of who Active Child is, rather than who he wants to be.

You Are All I See suffers from the exact same problem that plagued another act with a helium-voiced frontman: Passion Pit on their 2009 album Manners. Instead of delivering full products that capitalize on their immediate strengths, both albums pad their triumphs with overdramatic bluster storms that fail to really go anywhere, and it's kind of a shame.

The biggest caveat of this album is that the retro aesthetic mars Grossi's attempts at emotional connection--it tries to resonate, but by tapping into our memories of heartstrings and not our actual heartstrings, it falls short. But as production goes, it's a success.

Ultimately, Grossi's ability to marry elements of electro-pop, soul, classical, gospel, and other divergent influences into a cohesive, lo-fi brew allows You Are All I See to succeed as an evolutionary step beyond Active Child's synth-drenched origins.

It's all precisely mixed and impressively textured, but lacks Blake's more raw, emotional connection.

As it stands, You Are All I See is a very solid debut from a remarkable talent. I fully expect nothing but greater things in the future.

Seeing this is Grossi's first full-length, it's an achievement, and although it fizzles out near the end, the killer tracks far eclipse the lesser numbers.