At Long Last

“Waxwing,” the lead-off track on Cedar AV’s debut, At Long Last, begins with nearly two minutes of nothing but rainfall. Slowly, a low, throbbing beat fades in along with an acoustic guitar. Things distort and dissipate at around minute five. A fidgety electronic beat takes center stage at 7:30, closely followed by a looping 8-bit melody. A full minute later, the song finally begins. All told, “Waxwing” is twelve minutes long, gorgeous, audacious, and wonderfully unexpected. Too bad the rest of At Long Last feels so familiar.

Cedar AV is the on-again, off-again ambient/electro outfit of Decibully’s Nicholas Sanborn and friends Erik Schoster and Nathaniel Zabriskie. Unfortunately, the group’s breathy bedroom glitch shares far too much DNA with another famous side project: Songs like “Easier” and “Pilot’s Biography” are so reminiscent of The Postal Service, it’s a bit uncomfortable.

According to the band, many of the six songs that make up the album were waiting to be recorded since 2004. It shows. The production may be impeccable and the songwriting assured throughout, but the bulk of At Long Last is clearly a holdover from the early aughts. One can almost feel the ghost of a pre-Zooey Ben Gibbard lurking between tracks. Cedar AV thankfully finds its footing once again with “Requiem”—a long, wordless, harmonium-like drone—and album closer “Lullaby.” Starting off conventionally enough, the song ditches its vocals after only two minutes. It spends the rest of its nearly nine-minute run time meandering down a gorgeous path of fuzzy noise and ethereal keys. A distorted guitar evoking the rainfall of “Waxwing” is a nice touch, but only reinforces At Long Last’s status as a throwback album bookended by greatness.