After listening to The Vanishing Act more times than I can count over the last few weeks, I'm ready to ask the question, "could this finally be Øyvind Holm's year?" The years spent perfecting his craft as the primary songwriter for Norway's Dipsomaniacs have paid off handsomely in his first true solo effort. Having absorbed the perfect harmonies and tight song constructions of the Fab Four, the keen satiric eye and acerbic wit of Ray Davies, Elvis Costello and XTC, the sly self-deprecation of Matthew Sweet, and the wistful insight of Karl Wallinger's World Party, Holm balances all of these elements with a fondness for reviving and updating the aesthetic inclusiveness of psychedelic pop. The resulting concoctions have both an easily digestible sheen and deep flavors that linger.
Holm plays most of the instruments on The Vanishing Act and his arrangements show a sure command of the pop idiom while never falling back on cliché or gimmick. He introduces clever musical flourishes that find reinforcement in lyrics later in a song. The kaleidoscopic keyboard runs behind Holm's Lennon-esque vocals at the start of "Salt-Mutated Summer Breeze" presage his own mesmerisation by his lover. The serpentine keyboard line from "The Vanishing Act" provides an echo of how elusive the "beauty of the day" can be to capture. Holm chooses his instruments with a canny sense often pairing what might seem to be strange bedfellows in inspired combinations. When Andreas Aase's lap steel weaves around the edges of the loose and laid back drum and piano groove of "Cut Me Loose", it's perfect frosting on the cake.
As much as it might be initially appealing to describe The Vanishing Act's songs as sunny melodies darkened by looming lyrical rainclouds, that's a misleading and reductive description of Holm's style. It might be more accurate to say that Holm is fascinated with surface appearances and the truth that may be concealed beneath them. This truth can be ugly ("Wait My Time Away") or beautiful ("Sunday Church Bells Chime"), but there is always an element of the hidden to be ferreted out. Whether it is the empty ritual of a smile and a handshake or the inability of an ex-lover to own up to the end of a relationship (both in "There's Always May"), Holm makes it clear that anything that dissembles or disguises the truth is not to be tolerated.
Holm acts as the privileged arbiter of truth and often laments or lampoons the inability of other observer's to see what is so clear to him. Even the revelations enabled by this clarity can just as easily be positive as negative. In "Wait My Time Away" he finds solace in the belief that in time all will see through his ex-lover's false smile the way he eventually has. In "Salt-Mutated Summer Breeze" he proclaims he saw "right from the start" how perfect the object of his affection is even though no one else appears to have figured this out. Perhaps my favorite example of Holm's unearthing hidden truths is "Sunday Church Bells Chime" which is all about the overlooked treasures in every day life. Here the "plain Jane" next door neighbor is transformed by make-up and a new found confidence to an object of lust, and a heretofore invisible "Merry widow" takes herself to town to "make up for lost years." These characters refuse to be defined by an accidental or erroneous first impression of dowdiness. Despite his often dour outlook on human interaction, Holm is not unaware of the potential for joy and this song almost more than any other on the disc shows his romantic side. The song plays almost like a long-awaited sequel to the elegiac "Eleanor Rigby" where the protagonists finally break through the shell of their solitude. Holm's nimble bass lines over the verse echoes his characters indomitable spirit.
A whole record of being told that Holm alone has unclouded sight in a world full of the blind would wear thin pretty quickly. Fortunately he is willing to cop to being less than perfect and turn his criticism inward as well. In "Salt-Mutated Summer Breeze" he worries that "Her eyes might deceive her/I might not be worthy." In "The Skeleton Key Pt. 2", he claims in a wry aside, "I took some bad advice/Been my own consultant." Holm's sense of humor also helps steer him clear of claims of omniscience. In "Seven Years", his comments on the path not taken ("Should have grown a beard/Should have found a mountain cave") are the perfect salve to a relationship gone wrong. Taken in balance with his cataloging of the foibles of others, these observations bring a refreshing candor to The Vanishing Act. That this honesty leads to the disclosure of less than flattering traits over the course of the disc only creates a better sense of tension that would elude purely self-righteous proclamations of moral rectitude. When these attributes remain precariously guarded by a self-proclaimed flawed observer, that observer's criticism becomes even more slippery and interesting.
The Vanishing Act is all about finding that tricky path called the truth despite obstacles thrown up by ourselves and others. It's about turning a critical eye that is too easily satisifed by finding the fault in others on one's self. It's about not fearing the camera that can expose the soul, no matter how closely it probes. Øyvind Holm is ready for his close up, Mr. DeMille.
