The Gunshy - To Remember/To Forget
(Sleep)
To Remember/To Forget is catharsis, pure and simple. Matt Arbogast, songwriter, singer, guitarist, pianist, and, for all intents and purposes, The Gunshy, has strewn his debut cd with the bare tendrils of loves lost (and never realized), the cruelty of the world, and the pain of realizing that things haven't turned out the way you'd planned. Arbogast's songs are stark and simple, with no time for delicate subtlety or metaphor. He's a man with a few ardent axes to grind, and To Remember/To Forget is an unabashed laying out of his emotional entrails. Matt's entering precipitous territory, however, because it takes a delicate hand to emote this openly without drifting into caricature. After all, for every John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band, there are three Celine Dion videos full of grand hand gestures and chest-hitting fists.
It's presumptuous to attempt to discern the authenticity of the feeling in Arbogast's songs, but after a few listens, it's tough to doubt the guy. After all, there's little that has to do with To Remember/To Forget that's not dripping with intimate feeling, from the autobiographical lyrics to the cover photo of a grandfather that Arbogast never met. Most of the album is performed solo, and, even when backed by bass and drums, Arbogast sounds wholly alone and just as nakedly direct. It's this straightforward attempt at brutal sincerity, however, that leaves To Remember/To Forget sounding just a little too heavy and solemn. Arbogast's Waits-ish vocals are gruff and breathy, barely escaping his lips, and laden with far too much trembling waver and vulnerability. The guitar, piano, and other instruments that adorn the songs are, though unremarkable, well-paced and back Arbogast fittingly, but it's Arbogast's voice that shrieks for attention in its own understated way. Though I'm not a big Tom Waits fan (those interested in stoning me for that offense can find a target at the address below), to me, what makes the guy's voice special is the grumbly bravado of his voice when it reaches a bellowing intensity. Arbogast's voice, though similar in many other ways, never climbs above the hushed, restraint of the unadorned vocals that begin the album, and this lack of variety in tone, volume, and color weighs the songs down with the same heaviness, track after track. The music changes, but the vocals stay the same, and though Arbogast's sincerity seems authentic, the strained and almost detached quality of his vocals sounds too forced over such an extended period. Maybe if he didn't concentrate on sounding so pained, Arbogast's voice might convey his pain more convincingly and appropriately. But, as it is, To Remember/To Forget's quiet hush sounds totally over the top. Combine this with the inappropriate and ill-advised bonus track that barges in after twenty minutes of silence at the end of the disc, all whimsical whooshes of novelty tape and synth goofiness, and To Remember/To Forget resonates not as the pure, yet tempered emotional outlet that it could be, but a musical gnashing of the teeth on an album in which too much emoting gets in the way of the Gunshy's underlying emotion.
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