What do you do with a band that never wants to move past experimentation? As a fan of pop music, a big part of me would prefer a version of the Los Angeles-based band The Autumns that finds a sound they like and sticks to it. For the past twelve years, The Autumns have bounced around to whatever style suits their fancy, starting with decidedly down-tempo navel gazing, then recording what may be the definitive dream pop album of the late-90's/early 00's, stopping off in an EP full of 50's-inspired love songs, then abandoning all of it for abrasive avant-rock. Chances are, this slow-moving band probably won't settle there for long, either.

I'm on record as being a card carrying shoegaze geek, so I fell hard for The Autumns' debut LP The Angel Pool. It came out in 1997 on the heels of their first EP, Suicide at Strell Park. Given that the sonic landscape of that period was about as sunny as music can get and the fact that shoegaze had been out of fashion for a good five years, it's no wonder that these soaring, melancholy albums didn't do well on the pop charts. The band stuck with its doomed label, Risk Records, even after Simon Raymonde of the legendary Cocteau Twins took them under his wing and probably could have fit them into the 4AD roster where they would have flourished. Long, beautiful tracks like Glass in Lullabies balance out noisy rock songs like Sunblush on The Angel Pool. It's no mystery why this material couldn't capture the same audience that loved the likes of Smashmouth.

After The Autumns finished The Angel Pool they recorded In The Russet Gold of This Vain Hour, a more MTV-friendly album that didn't take off as much as it maybe should have thanks to the collapse of Risk Records in 2000. This isn't to suggest that The Autumns actually wanted to be the next big thing. They spent the proceeding years tooling around with doo-wop on a one-off EP called Le Carillion that is far more charming than an album by a band that debuted with songs about suicide should be, as well as recording a small record of covers. The latter included what may be the only competent cover of Please Please Please by The Smiths.

Though The Autumns have enjoyed a fair amount of critical acclaim since then, they haven't really charted high in the States and it's not likely they ever will. They traffick mostly in wild, weird tracks like Boys these days, which unfortunately is neither pop-chart friendly nor particularly satisfying for their old crop of fans who prefer the sweeping melodies of their contemplative shoegaze days.

All the same, I don't begrudge The Autumns as a fan or as a critic for their meandering career. When a band decides to never chase the top spot, it either fades into obscurity or makes a respectable creative career for its members. In the case of The Autumns, they've been around long enough to fall neatly into the latter category.