|
|
|
I'm fixated on one particular song on this album. "Jen, Nothing Matters to Me" is partly a tongue-in-cheek homage to bands like The Cure, New Order, and The Smiths, but it also retains enough intrinsic Irving-ness that the song doesn't play as straight-up parody. The icy keyboard lead, "Just Like Heaven"-esque chord progression, and mopey, glissando-inflected vocals are offset by the band's stuttering, lopsided jangle. The lyrics also deflate their own mopey-boy sentiments by stating them in the most deadpan, generic terms: "I have a basic unwillingness to commit to anything substantial, and I am emotionally unavailable;" and addressing them to "Jen," as opposed to, say, "Cassandra." It's brilliantly deft, and on top of that it's an incredibly catchy pop song in its own right.
Irving display off-kilter wit throughout this album (their second). There's often an absurd twist in the lyrics, or a deliberate awkward phrase like "You have the look of flowers that are looked at," or this slightly garbled ESL-like syntax: "And she is talking with an accent / that it sounds good." Since the protagonist in many of these songs keeps messing up with the ladies and ending up lonely, these kind of lyrical oddities help add a little bit of distance that keeps you from thinking that the band are real-life jerks.
As for the music, it's a kind of orchestrated art-pop where each of the five members of the band's parts fits into the puzzle to create an equal part of the whole. There are modern-sounding guitars, some more New Wave keyboard parts, some carefully-arranged backing vocals, even a mini one-song rock opera. I love what the band does, but there's something about this album that's a little too tidy and restrained and could use a little bit of the letting-loose the band displayed on songs like "L-O-V-E I Love You" from its first album.
Incidentally, the insert art by Max Miceli is fantastic. (mike.05.06)
rating
related links