et’s face it: explosions are exciting. It’s a guaranteed way to make rubbernecks of us all. The deafening and fiery ordeals are what make the Fourth of July, building demolitions, and NASCAR what they are, their intensity provoking an inimitable exhilaration or even a child-like fear. But what would an explosion-less life feel like? Sure, you’d be more at ease knowing the leaking gas would lead to nothing more that some minor brain damage. But things would probably get rather dull. While I doubt I’ll ever be able to honestly answer that question, I do have an idea what a world lacking in explosions sounds like. Winds Take No Shape is that sound.

To be totally fair, there are technically few things to find fault with on Call and Response’s sophomore outing. Drums go here, harmonized vocals go there, guitar hook guitar hook guitar hook, bass goes here. Everything on Winds Take No Shape is done with such mechanic precision that there’s little room for any sparks to ignite this mythic fire.

As such, the album is very cohesive. No one song strays too far from the one that preceded it. At a streamlined 37 minutes, the group doesn’t allow itself to abandon their tightly composed sound. But even when they try and shake things up, like with the folky, mostly instrumental “Before the Dream”, their efforts don’t provide the punch that would elevate the song from “pleasant” to “gorgeous”. Some of this ineffectiveness can be attributed to the dreaded inevitability of growing up. I hesitate to say that the quintet is at that point where the ideas have run dry and the passion is gone (on their second album, no less), but it sounds like they’re getting close. The cello that creeps around “Trapped Under Ice” is one such omen. Strings can be often interpreted as a harbinger of (eek!) maturity, especially in the context of a pop group going in a different direction.

Still, for every non-peak, there’s a non-valley. The guitar work of Daniel Judd is refined and provides some of the more melodically interesting material on the album, even if sometimes there’s not much of a song to work with (consider him the Eric Gagne to C&R’s Dodgers). And while the record lacks those sonic eruptions, it does pack waves and waves of sweet harmonies. It’s difficult to describe the record: is it droning or lulling? Since Winds Take No Shape rarely risks flaring up and commanding attention, I’m not sure it matters.