Album review,
edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros,
folk-pop,
psychedelic,
ryan,
ryan wolf
—
Alex Ebert and his posse are on album number three and their extravagant hippie parade shows no signs of slowing down. Under the stage/cartoon messiah name Edward Sharpe, Ebert has made some deliriously joyful noises with The Magnetic Zeros. The band's new self-titled record may be the band's most concentrated, pitch-perfect attempt at sixties-throwback pop songwriting. Its lo-fi production aesthetic, however, undermines and dilutes the effect of some truly likable tracks.
Instead of creating warmth and nostalgia, the crackly, song-submerging production comes off as generally alienating, consciously far lower in sound quality than the pop hits of yesteryear Ebert cheerily apes and expressively transforms. Ebert seems to have a romantic idea of lo-fi recordings, forgetting that most great acts who resorted to the techniques the band uses on the record did so out of DIY necessity and were more than thrilled to use better technology once their budgets permitted. Unless Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros have already spent the money they've made from being featuring on NFL commercials, the group has no excuse for intentionally sounding broke.
Gripes against production choices aside, Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros is an enjoyable listen beneath the "did-I-just-download-a-crappy-32-kbps-copy-of-this-album-or-is-this-actually-how-it-sounds" coat of sonic sludge that dampens everything a bit. The songs themselves, divorced from the slumming recording style, are breezy, fun, full of psychedelic fervor and gospel-of-love preaching. Whether calling listeners to "come celebrate" the difficulties of living on "Life is Hard" or espousing mass love-intoxication on the winding, jangling, brilliant "Let's Get High," Ebert rises above the fuzz and exudes the messianic confidence his alter ego is sworn to project.
The grab-bag of Beatlesesque Magical Mystery Touring, Age of Aquarius promising, and pseudo-Motown and reggae dance hall-hopping, covered in coos and claps, is as wonderful as anything The Magnetic Zeros are capable of. Though over-long and (very) occasionally lackluster, Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros is by-in-large a charming affair, closing with "This Life" in the Key of Surprisingly Honest Self-Reflection. If only the band hadn't felt the need to stamp out their ecstatic strengths with fourth-rate recording equipment...
Grade: B
Album review,
folk,
folk-pop,
josh rouse,
ryan,
singer-songwriter,
the happiness waltz
—
Nebraskan songwriter Josh Rouse has never been too much of a downer. But on his latest record, The Happiness Waltz, happiness as a goal, and as a reality, lights up the entire album. On the wistful "Start Up a Family," Rouse sings "We've seen a lot of bad times / Right now would be a good time to turn it around." The album could have been as easily titled Turn Around Songs. And though many might be cynical about a record called The Happiness Waltz, what's so upsetting about pleasantness?
This is relax-breathe-in-chill-out music for fans of Jack Johnson or Michael Bublé (call it "swing folk" or even better/much worse "swinger-songwriter"). Rouse so effortlessly conjures warmth and ease, and even at it his chilliest his songs fall on the ears as picaresque snowfalls or gentles drizzles of rain. There is nothing dark and stormy about The Happiness Waltz, even if it never feels ecstatic enough to quite live up to its title.
It is impossible to be offended or justifiably upset by the cool nice-guy vibe of "Julie (Come Out of the Rain)" or the seventies sway of "It's Good to Have You." It is also just as difficult to feel any particular attachment to the songs. The music is there to rest in, to play at a café, in an elevator, beside a hammock. Avoiding any sort of catharsis or the sort of profundity Paul Simon (who Rouse at time vocally imitates) brings to his work, The Happiness Waltz is nonetheless so likable, so good natured, that questions of catharsis or depth almost seem irrelevant.
The Happiness Waltz is there to enjoy above all. Following a vague narrative, it finds Rouse searching for a new home with the people he loves. If the record itself can be loved it will be loved for its calmness, for its affability. The Happiness Waltz is the atypical optimistic record done right. And what's to hate about that?
Grade: B
