Album Notes

“Three years in the making, I Dream in Autoplay (Climber’s recent LP) is everything you'd expect from the Climber gents. It's a massive beast of a record, with swelling synths and dramatic hooks…” writes the Portland Mercury. Some tracks highlight the subtle harmonies and electronic warmth of the band’s initial phase, while others showcase the bigger, bolder sounds of the live-show. Yet the band’s second release maintains cohesion through a persistent focus upon sonic depth, complex harmony, and melodic beauty.

“The idea of the first album was simple,” says Nelson, “we wanted to pet people with our music; nothing loud, nothing jarring.” But the experience of steady gigging in the Northwest and CA began to reshape this paradigm. The new songs are sonically grand and ambitious, reflecting the band’s desire to write music that communicates effectively in a live-setting. “From the driving opener, ‘Stop That Holy Dance,’ it’s obvious that this is a darker, deeper and more dynamic affair that not only delivers on the band’s promise but finds the band growing and stretching,” reports the Portland Tribune.

Lyrically, I Dream in Autoplay combines the ridiculous and the sublime; images of frightening encounters with monsters appear alongside shopping lists of sincere complaints about the nature of existence. The seemingly disparate subject matter is, at its core, a glance at the human condition from various angles, from the voices of the skeptics in “Stop That Holy Dance,” to the transcendence of “Always Right.” For every enormous question asked of the universe, there is a soft, yet emphatic reply from the mouths of babes.

Several years have passed since Climber’s last official release but the band has not been idle. Touring the west coast heavily, recording a demo project with producer/engineer Lars Fox (My Chemical Romance, Nick Cave, The Shins, John Mayer, Everclear), and signing with Los Angeles licensing firm Natural Energy Lab (The 88, The Bravery, Editors, Garbage, My Morning Jacket, Elliott Smith), who have placed Climber’s music in independent films, WB primetime dramas and soundtracks released on Universal Records.


WILLAMETTE WEEK

“The magic of Climber's music, and the reason these guys deserve to be in the upper echelon of the Portland music world, is that they've found a way to create songs based in sadness that resonate with such life-affirming energy that they rarely leave a listener pondering the dark side of life.”

THREE IMAGINARY GIRLS

“Vocalist and pianist, Michael Nelson, reminds me of both Thom Yorke and Chris Martin, and he does it with a grace that few can pull off. It takes a certain quality of pipes to sing in that manner, and he possesses enough skill to not come off sounding extremely derivative, a failing task for many bands.”