It is a pet peeve of mine that the popularization of independent music in the last 5-7 years has led to a watering down of the "indie rock" genre. It's not a complaint about quality of course, the vast majority of my favourite records have been released by independent artists, but one of accuracy. The volume of independent artists now defined by the term "indie rock" is sheer and varied, and is used in application from the dirty rock of Archers of Loaf to Of Montreal's synthy psych pop. It is a useless term thrown carelessly about to describe anything with a guitar in it that isn't on television.

You could tame me by telling me that genre is largely irrelevant, especially to fans of music as you would find here, and the artists we enjoy who dabble in overlapping aesthetics and influences. I could complain that categorization is in human nature, and something we are all inclined to do so as to process the world, but for all intents and purposes, genre is a useful descriptive tool for referential and recommendation purposes, and remind me what a music blog is again?

Other Lives' Tamer Animals is one such album lumped into an ambiguous genre that does it no justice. Let it be known then, that the branch of "indie rock" to which I refer in this case is the post-2004 chamber pop style of Arcade Fire and Grizzly Bear. Tamer Animals is a modest album, but luscious in instrumentation and dreamlike melodies. It swells and sighs with booming drums and wind-swept strings. I would not boast that Tamer Animals is a ground-breaking album by any means, but it is a charming and thoughtful record released in a slow year, with much beauty to be observed in it.

It is too tempting to describe this album as a soundtrack to a piece of fantasy fiction, speaking of far away lands mysterious and sprawling. Songs depict areas of maps. It traverses deeply wooded forest paths in For 12, stirring dew and magic from the grasses, and gives way to scalding sands in Desert, exiles for hire chasing the shimmering heat waves on the lips of hot dunes for miles, all without succumbing to the novelty of videogames or film. Jesse Tabish's forlorn mutter allows the orchestration to take center stage, and what dynamic melodies it affords them, slight and bittersweet. It is nomadic, a wanderer's album. For lone wolves, and for drifters.

It's a pity that none of these qualities are conveyed by a term that may very well have put a listener off at the beginning of this review. Perhaps it was skimmed and disregarded into a pile of last-decade cast-offs, but that is a listener's loss, as this is a lovely, fantastical album that deserves a better label.