The Lonelyhearts
"Disaster Footage at Night" CD
Three Ring
Records
Genre: folk rock, indie pop
Iowa City & El Cerrito USA
Oct 17, 2008 |
Okay, so their press release says they're a folk-rock band and each
track reveals a "thoughtful and interesting narrative." Why their PR
staff insists on lowering their audience's expectations like that, I'm
not sure, but don't believe their false modesty. The Lonelyhearts'
latest is more sonically ambitious than they'd care to admit. The
lyrics are rambling monologues rather than linear stories, and the
arrangements are dense and rockin' by folk-rock standards. And then
there's the really awesome thing: how a handful of its songs gradually
swell toward immense codas, in which the strolling tempos, mountains
of instruments, and wistful lyrical refrains all coalesce into grooves
with powerful momentum even though they're pretty slow. In that sense
they're kind of like the Besnard Lakes' epics minus the guitar
heroism.
One example is freedom-fighter-returns-home epic "Concrete and
Chrome," in which a soldier slowly lets on that he's found that his
wife has moved on and he's out of his friend's loop, among other
calamities. "Where is my parade?/Where is my welcome home?" That's the
chorus. After the last chorus and a short pause, the narrator decides,
"I should have stayed." Then he repeats that 91 times as the song
swells toward its coda, affording you ample time to reflect on what
the band is saying. This one's easy: people like this soldier exist,
and war imposes hidden costs on them. So their politics are good,
which is cool, but I really don't like how the Lonelyhearts
make their Big Important Statements through words they put in
characters' mouths. This time, it works, but generally it strikes me
as insincere. The album's closer, "Black and Blue Devil," is a speech
delivered to the only black player on the Duke men's lacrosse team
from the perspective of his father, and yes it is every bit as
patronizing as it sounds. If there's a point beyond that the dad in
question exists, it's beyond me.
I find honest human songs from the gut much more convincing. Like
"New Virginia," easily this album's best track. It's a
self-deprecating jam about looking for new beginnings everywhere, like
New Virginia, Iowa, for such sane reasons as "it seemed like a haven
for clean Christian maidens." It sounds just like its lyrics read -
guardedly optimistic in depressing times. And because it's a
first-person song, it's infinitely more resonant than anything else on
the album. Where the Lonelyhearts go from here, who knows, but
I'll be listening. They sound fine. I just wish they'd try to be less
Big with their Statements. They'd be more Important as a result.
the
lonelyhearts' myspace
81%
Rhett Alexander
[Vitals: 9 tracks, distributed by
the
label,
released Sep 16, 2008] |