Jason Anderson - New England
(K)
Following the trend of his last album, Something/Everything, Jason Anderson is continuing to move away from power-pop and toward intimate, sincere, and very direct acoustic-based songwriting. With this change has come a need for more artful production, as nuance affects how songs like these translate on record. Luckily for Jason, a good friend of his, Phil Elverum, is one of the better people to work with for creatively embellishing songs of this sort.
The collaboration doesn't stop there. In fact, this album works best when Jason shares the singing duties. Of album highlights "A Book Laid on its Binding," "You Fall," "For Kyle," "Thanksgiving," and "I Want My Summer Back," more than half have either Phil or Mirah joining to sing. The rarely attempted (but enjoyable this time) duet of "You Fall" has Phil and Jason trading phrases that seem loosely based on the idea of different things that could potentially catch you from falling or carry you away. However, at one point, it sounds like Phil sings "Adam Forkner reggae snowcones," so maybe I'm way off. Or, more likely, this is an indication of the sense of fun that exists between the lines about Jason's sense of sadness, love, joy, and desperate longing. Phil contributes a track, "Thanksgiving," where Jason doesn't even sing! It's very good, but the album's highlight is either "A Book Laid on Its Binding," on which Mirah sings backup or the lonely and dejected "I Want My Summer Back."
Stripping down his songs has led to some awkward clarity in his lyricism. "So Long" tells of a first date: "...the smell of your hair is, literally, amazing/honestly, this is like one of those dreams/where you get to hang out with the guys from Fugazi." However, as is generally the case with K artists, Jason's sincerity and personality somehow make what would usually be a terrible and trite lyric into something genuine and endearing.
While the production is great on a lot of the songs, Something/Everything offered a broader range of the musical palette, which, combined with Jason's songwriting style, set it apart as a breed entirely of its own. So, while this album focuses in closer on Jason's songs, the album loses something of what made the last album so charming. Nonetheless, there are song on here that are better on their own than anything on Something/Everything.
|
