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Before listening to this latest album, I had developed a semi-irrational fear/hatred of Devendra Banhart which had led me to avoid his more recent output. There were several reasons for this. Firstly, there is the fact that he looks a lot like Charles Manson. Secondly, his early work sounds not dissimilar to Charles Manson's, which is not in itself a bad thing, but paired with the physical similarity is a little scary. Thirdly, he used to go out with Natalie Portman (whom I one day plan to make my wife) and due to his aforementioned resemblance to Charles Manson and the fact he was clearly punching above his weight, I couldn't help but think he was exerting some sort of sinister Manson-like mind control over her!
I suppose the most important reason for my dislike, was that I felt his early albums took the audience for granted by presenting them with 20 odd tracks of standard man-with-an-acoustic-guitar arrangements. There needed to be something else and a Mark Bolan impression and some freaky-deaky lyrics didn't cut it for me.
If there is a problem with What Will We Be it is of quite the opposite nature. At a mere 14 tracks (ahem), the album is heaving with musical ideas and styles; Angelika moves from Tea for the Tillerman era Cat Stevens to grimy latin jazz, Foolin' is a cheery little ska number and Baby sounds like Vampire Weekend's brand of pseudo-soukous. My personal highlight is the opener, the appropriately named Can't Help But Smiling which sounds like a slowed down version of In the Summertime by Mungo Jerry, complete with playfully staccato piano line and unapologetically optimistic lyrics.
As is suggested in the homage paid in 16th Valencia & Roxy Music, love is the drug of this album and helps bring together a diverse selection of tracks into a coherent and satisfying whole. What Will We Be is a pleasure from start to finish and I no longer find Devendra Banhart quite so scary.
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