Garth Steel Klippert - Suisol
(Broke)
Garth Steel Klippert is an odd name to give yourself—there's no way around that simple fact. It's a name that evokes several different feelings at once. Is it a joke? Is it dead serious, like the name of some guy who would break your face after you look at his Harley in the wrong way? This sort of ambiguity stretches from Garth Steel Klippert's name (yes this is a guy, not a band) directly into his music and it reaches definitively mixed results. As demonstrated on Suisol, Klippert has a knack for creating interesting sounds with his songs. Using a mish-mash of guitars, trumpets, trombones, saxophones, accordions, pedal steel and other instruments that you don't always hear together, Klippert's songs sometimes reach a very unique and interesting sound that seems reminiscent of some sort of time that never really existed. Is it part street orchestra? Is it an old-time brass band from New Orleans? This sort of difficulty in really placing the emotion that the better-crafted songs exhibit demonstrates a true artistic knack. The problem is that these gems are offset at a close to 1:1 ratio with songs that are too derivative, overused or, quite simply, cornball. There is a definite schizophrenic side to this album, perhaps one that is directly representative of the conundrum that is the artist's name.
On the songs where everything clicks, the results are quite interesting and unlike most other things out there within the current realm of American rock. The album opener, "America is a Drug (& It Can Kill U)," offers a promising glimpse of a fun, almost straightforward pop/rock song. It is refreshing enough that a whole album comprising of this style would be quite interesting. Tones shift on another great track entitled "The Small Things." The song's arrangement prominently features a great deal of vibraphone and other fun sounds which allow Klippert's vocal range to be featured as well as it is anywhere on the entire album. The vibraphone persists in the playful dirge of "The Road to Love" offers a true glimpse at some sort of unidentifiable nostalgia. This might be the song offering the most fun from the album. Good stuff. "Away & Gone" takes a different approach as it takes out Klippert's sometimes strained vocals and goes for nothing but interesting instrumental work. Without the vocals in the mix the listener is able to focus on just the song's splendid arrangement.
Unfortunately, the stinkers on this album are quite bad. "Lost Souls" is simply too painful for this listener to really endure. Is this the sound of a nightmarish carnival? Just one big joke? Whatever it is that Klippert is trying to accomplish with this track, he fails on all counts. The most painful of these failures is the flat and atonal vocal note he hits on the utterance of "soul" in the chorus. Shudder. "Hope You're Happy" is simply the sort of tired and overworked material that focuses on past romances. These songs, when so plainly done, are never a good idea. "Tailgate" is the sort of horrific trainwreck you would expect to hear coming from the parking lot of a Phish show. Ridiculous vocal effects only make the final product more frightening. I won't comment more on the track "Artificial Soul" except to say that the title is quite apt. The album's final miss comes in the form of the closing title track. Some artists can use the minimalistic sounds that can come from a Casio to their advantage (see the raw, early "Pure" songs by the Mountain Goats). That said, "Suisol" is not one of those songs. It is almost jarring as alternates between treating the Casio tones with either too much reverence and seriousness or viewing them simply as a joke.
Klippert's Suisol definitely demonstrates artistic promise, albeit one that is tempered with a few missteps along the way. For someone in the dawn of their career this is not a bad place to be, and his future output may yet offer reason for continued praise.
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