Schro - Guarding the Orchard
(self-released)
The general formula here is gentle, layered guitarwork/soft keys overlayed with tinny home-beats and blips'n'bloops, and Schro (a one-man operation from musician Dave Schroeder) sticks pretty faithfully to it for the entirety of Guarding the Orchard. Fine idea, mixed results: A few songs in, as the tracks start melting together in the ear/brain, it becomes obvious that the sonic possibilities offered by that equation are fairly limited on this disc.
Lead track "Dawn" sets the template, with its watery guitars, metallic tick-tock, and light electro-touches. While not groundbreaking, it's enjoyable enough, as Schro successfully weaves the more human sounding guitars with the colder beats and blips, giving neither pride of place in the mix. The album never seems to progress from here, though, as similar ground is tread over the next half hour of music. "Spill," accurately labeled the "most groovy" song by Schroeder, provides a welcome change with its bouncier beat and subtle synthesized stringsounds, but this is only a momentary respite from the norm.
It's difficult not to be frustrated by the final song, "Sleepy," which features the album's only lyrics. Nine tracks in, we find out that Schroeder is in fact a good singer, with a soft voice quite well-suited to his instrumental style. Had his vocals popped up throughout the album and given each song more of an individual character ("Gizmos" does include some wordless half-singing), the work's almost numbing flow would certainly have been broken up a bit.
It's that lack of variation that ultimately relegates Guarding the Orchard to pleasant background music status. This is music for sleepy mopers-mellow, rain-out-the-window songs for a gray, slow autumn. True, Schro makes it clear that he can effectively establish and sustain a mood over the course of a record; unfortunately, that mood's just not very exciting this time around.
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