MOG Editorial Review

Only a few years back, High Places were a sort of electroacoustic twee duo, with overly cute songs about banana slugs and other forest critters. It was a bit easy to hear their performances as strictly living room-appropriate and sweater-specific, despite all the cool sounds they would happen upon. However, over their last three records they've proved they can charm the boundaries off several other genres with ease, elevating their humble aesthetic to even, ahem, higher places with each new release, continuing to explore their style with various combos of beats, samples, guitars, and synths. Original Colors is their most consistent album to date: a full-on electronic dance record, an ode to mid- and down-tempo house music, vibing somewhere between Europe and Chicago in the '90s, but a bit more chilled out. There's even a dub track among the bunch, the raw and gunky "Morning Ritual." Mary Pearson's vocals are nearly timid in their delivery; that only increases their sense of mystery when couched in Rob Barber's music.