Silver Jews frontman David Berman shares a glaring similarity with rock great Bob Dylan
He can’t sing at all.
Normally this might be a big impediment to a lead singer, but much like Dylan, he makes it work. He delivers his lyrical slice of life stories in a raspy monotone that adds a sense of authenticity to his songs. His scratchy voice gives lines like “Pain works on a sliding scale/ So does pleasure in a candy jail” in the track “Candy Jail” a level of grit that wouldn’t exist if the song was sung by the last American Idol winner.
Berman is also successful because he is a brilliant poet. He can turn a phrase with the best of them and his lyrics are rife with pithy lines, evocative imagery and sardonic wit. In “San Francisco B.C.” a tale of love gone sour, Berman sings “She said ‘you don’t make enough to provide for me’ /I said ‘what about the stuff that we quote believe?’” Similarly witty and humorous is the track “Strange Victory, Strange Defeat” that depicts the plight of a band of squirrels who dare to defy mediocrity.
The music itself also compliments Berman’s folksy fables. Berman and his sole other band member, his wife Cassie, use warm guitar chords, bright bouncing piano harmonies and simple drum beats to complement Berman’s steady lyrical delivery. The music is refreshingly upbeat and has a simple feel to it despite the intricate harmonies that the Silver Jews adeptly weave into the song. The instruments also never overpower David Berman’s voice allowing him to clearly narrate his poetic stories.
In the Silver Jews latest release, Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, Berman shares stories of life and love in throaty monotone. His limited vocal range adds grit and authenticity to his poetic narratives. Let’s hope he never takes a singing lesson.
The Unicorns aren’t real. They’re dead. Gone. Finished. Extinct. A band that at one point in 2004 had the whole indie community at their feet is now one best kept locked in your memory and away from the public eye.
How could this happen?
Perhaps it was the fact that Nicholas Thorburn of Islands – and formerly, The Unicorns – started cursing at the top of his lungs “holy f—k!” when asked by a fan about his former band that tipped you off. Maybe it was the public hostility against fans during their Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone Tour that got you thinking that The Unicorns were dead. Or maybe it was the even more obvious giant banner on their website, which appropriately read: “THE UNICORNS ARE DEAD, (R.I.P.)” I suppose any of those could be a subtle clue towards The Unicorns demise – their break-up marked one of the ugliest indie-scene debacles in the 21st century.
But out of the ocean of turmoil comes Islands, a band that still retains many of the lovable goofy pop attributes that made “that other band” so wonderful to listen to. In remembering The Unicorns, we can honor their death with some of the zaniest and darkest tunes Thorburn has produced since The Unicorns departure.
Islands’ newest single, “Creeper,” is an instant dance hit, coupled with a deep, booming bass and an awfully catchy lead guitar progression. The song reminds the listener of a combination of lyrics from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” psychedelic instruments from an Of Montreal song, and produced with glazy reverbs by James Murphy. With lyrics as exciting as they are dark (“creeper in my home / crawling through the window / grabbed the kitchen knife / couldn’t stick it in though”), Islands perfects a burlesque sort of song, one rife with energy and hooks. The juxtaposition of bright, bubbly sounds with mysterious, sinister lyrics creates a truly unique bit of pop glory.
How this happiness came out of the catastrophic ending of The Unicorns is beyond me. But nevertheless, Thorburn and company continue to produce. Islands newest album, Arm’s Way, drops May 20th.
John K. Samson — lead singer and songwriter for the Weakerthans — should have been a poet, or maybe a novelist even. He should have picked a medium where he could really expect his audience to sit and listen to the words, to pour over them, to dissect them and drink them in fully, to go and do the necessary research to tangle out the clever little allusions, to fully understand the powerful metaphors. He shouldn’t have picked an art form where lyrics often take a back seat to licks, to riffs, and to the steady beat of the drums. But all I can say is thank God he did what he shouldn’t have.
Samson’s song-writing is clearly what makes the Weakerthans such an amazing band. Lyrically he has an astounding ability to put himself into a character’s head and then perfectly capture them emotionally. Take for example track two off of their latest album Reunion Tour, “Hymn of the Medical Oddity” where Samson’s dying character begs not to be forgotten, singing “if they remember me at all/make them remember me/ as more than a queer experiment/ more than a diagram in their quarterly/ make them remember me.” Or track five off the same album, when he takes on the persona of a runaway cat, desperate to return home but unable to remember how. Here he laments the fact that he has forgotten what his owner called him by singing “but I can’t remember the sound that you found for me.”
I could pull similar quotes from every other song off the album and off the album before it Reconstruction Site, and I still wouldn’t do the band justice, since much of the power in these songs comes in their whole effect, where Samson laces in bits of the mundane in such away that the emotions become that much more powerful and real. Nor would I have time to explain the depth and breadth of the references that Samson draws on to craft these songs, pulling from sources diverse as hockey, curling, the story of David Riemer, the Art of Edward Hooper, the dot-com crash, the Bigfoot legend, and more. And even if I could do all this I wouldn’t be able to convey how Samson puts these to music with an incredible subtly and restraint that helps them shine all the more.
So I’ll do the only thing I can do, which is tell you to listen to the track we’ve got here, “Sun in an Empty Room,” based off the painting of the same name by Edward Hooper, and hope that you’re impressed enough to go buy the rest of their music for yourself.
Editors at The Emory Wheel, Emory University's student newspaper, sound off on their favorite albums and artists of the moment. You can find more info here.
Courtesy of Anti-Records
Brooks Reynolds/Courtsey of Anti Records