Monday, April 26, 2004
Some recent disappointments--and a winner!
Most albums have 2-4 tracks that stand out. With Manitoba's Up In Flames, it's as if 4 tracks worth of great material have been dissolved for stock and permeate the whole album, a moment here, a moment there. As a result, no single track impresses me as being a standout. What you get is a collage of textures, many of which aren't very interesting. As an LP, it's a solid achievement, indicating a lot of potential. But I couldn't generally recommend it to anyone.
It reminds me a bit of The Violet Hour by the Clientele, another acclaimed 2003 indie album, both in that the album features pretty, sleepy male vocals, and also because The Violet Hour bleeds together into one long, solid but ultimately uninspired album. Luna's Dean Wareham, a master of the sleepy vocal, can thrill me with his romantic songs and amuse me with his silly lyrics, but The Clientele's sleepy voice just lulls me.
While, I'm at it, I'll just mention Iron & Wine's The Creek Drank The Cradle, an album I rushed to buy after hearing his cover of the Flaming Lips' "Waitin' for a Superman," an incredible performance. What a disappointment to find that when it came to performing his own material, the songs all sounded the same, lacking any crispness of definition. I felt stupid for even wanting to take a chance on his latest album, Endless Numbered Days, but such was my faith in the talent displayed on the aforementioned cover song. And I was finally vindicated. I've listened to it only twice, but the songs are of a much better quality--melodically more memorable--and the production takes what had been basic and simple and gives it just the slightest extra decoration needed to make things interesting while staying minimalist. "Naked As We Came" is a gorgeous song, the standout so far, but I'm confident there are other gems to be mined from this one.
