C
68%
DNTEL
Dumb Luck
Sub Pop
Have you ever been invited to a party just to get there and find out that the real reason you were asked was so you would bring your cooler best friend?
No? Well, me neither. However, it does happen to people less fortunate looking.
Jimmy Tamborello reminds me of one of these people. He’s so dependant on his more talented friends and collaborators that you have to wonder if he isn’t just a tad frustrated. After making a perfect synth-pop album with the Postal Service, he seems desperate to step out of the shadow his better known—and perhaps better looking in keeping with the analogy—partners create. Dumb Luck his new album as DNTEL and the first under the name in six years, will not be getting him sincere invites any time soon.
Jenny Lewis’s appearance on the track “Roll On,” and some surprisingly sincere lyrics from the album’s opener make Dumb Luck worth a listen. One listen. Singular. Just once.
—Nathan Page
B
76%
Oh Susanna
Short Stories
Outside
Suzie Ungerleider’s alter ego is like a troubadour who’s traveled gravel roads and sat on hard church pews all over rural Ontario, collecting stories of warnings and sadness.
Aptly titled Short Stories, Oh Susanna’s highly narrative new album is full of story-songs that stand on their own.
Ungerleider’s big, curvy vocals are the highlight of the album, stretching out over lyrics like “I wear my jeans too tight / Papa says trouble’s sure to come” on “Schoolyard,” drawing a picture of high school years in a small town. A few songs later, Bob Dylan’s “Billy 4” becomes infinitely more mournful than the original.
Listening to the complete album can be frustrating, as the stories begin to blend. They lose their effectiveness lyrically, and distract from the music, which is provided by some of Canada’s folk-rock royalty, including Luke Doucet, Justin Rutledge, Joey Wright and Ungerleider’s husband, Cam Giroux, who co-produced the album. Although the album doesn’t take many risks, and at times errs on the side of being too listenable, the simple folksiness of Oh Susanna’s story-telling will have even the most urban souls craving split-rail fences and winding roads.
—Meghan Sheffield
B
77%
Bjork
Volta
Atlantic
Volta, scattered with trip-hop pulses and snare drums, is Bjork’s return to her love affair with rhythms after her last record’s focus on voice. To find some new beats, Bjork enlisted R&B producer Timbaland, but his reputedly smooth touch is overpowered by her pouncing vocals. Volta doesn’t really groove: it marches.
The opening track “Earth Invaders,” welcomes listeners with muddy-sounding steps while Bjork’s voice greets the listener like a grin. The rhythm drives like a stampede through a swamp while the music dances over top of it mischievously. Only Bjork could turn lyrics like, “turmoil carnage” into a warm cry.
In “The Dull Flame of Desire” Bjork hits her mark by ing in a duet with Antony Hegarty. Antony’s low and wavering tremolo compliments Bjork’s swooping vocals. The song begins with a solemn brass section that builds to triumph and drops to a whisper depending on the moment. Antony re-appears for the final track, “My Juvenile”—another subtle duet that Bjork strips down to vocals and a trickling clavichord. The album gets muddled when the club-worthy beats of “Innocence” grate against Bjork’s staccato voice. Initially it’s amusing because a syrupy R&B voice would be expected to pour over the syncopated thumps and punches, but you’re left aching for the better executed danceable tracks from 1995’s Post.
Volta offers a soundtrack for anger and sweetness and everything in between to varying degrees of success. For a self-proclaimed musical experiment from an already avant-garde artist, Volta is surprisingly accessible.
—Adèle Barclay
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