Made for TV Movie – The Story of my Heroics

It’s really quite ironic that emo, a subgenre that managed to once again, for a brief moment in its youth, instill punk music with a sense of importance and relevance, has turned into one of the most flaccid and sterile music scenes around. It’s really quite disappointing (though hardly unforeseen). The stalwarts of the scene represent perhaps the biggest problem. Jets to Brazil babble random nothingness over new wave textures. The Get Up Kids now provide the soundtrack to Seventeen magazine. And if The Promise Ring’s tepid blend of hack songwriting and nonsensical lyrics inspire anything more than throwaway pop, it’s lost on me. Only a scant few bands have managed to combine enough youthful believability and songwriting ambition to muster “emotional” music (Planes Mistaken for Stars and Rainer Maria to name a couple). Alas, one more little movement has been obscured into that hazy line between indie rock and just simple rock music.
So where does that leave Made for TV Movie’s The Story of my Heroics, their debut album for the quite capable Jealous Butcher Records (everything that I have seen from this label has been excellently presented and admirably packaged)? Well, for better or for worse, MTVM still fall on the “emo” side of the fuzzy line mentioned above. The trio recalls Planes Mistaken for Stars with their intimate attempts at personal poetry, the moodiness of Slint, and the occasional chafing riffage and angular song structures of Fugazi (who are probably the real touchstone here).
“Good” opens the eight-song album promisingly, with hushed vocals followed by surprisingly believable yells (“and I know/this is good/it fucking works”). “Couch” is the predictably mushy soft song, as the singer babbles something about coming over so he “can sleep on the couch,” right before some distortion rips in. If it weren’t for the somewhat trite lyrics, the song might be a keeper, but with them it’s just average. “Paper Anniversary” and “Argument” are the two songs that make me mention Slint in this review; unfortunately, this is where the band loses it. The songs evoke Slint not in their quiet narrative quality, but in their looming, impending moodiness and slower tempo (especially in the latter – the former flirts with distortion and some Fugazi-esque feedback). Unfortunately, this guy sings about as well as elderly people in Florida vote, and it sort of ruins both of the songs.
Remarkably, the band manages to collect themselves again. “Portable” almost has a hook in it – as is, it propels forward with anger and shredding feedback that neither of the two songs preceding it contained. “How did we get Here Last Night” is a slow burner with that eerie mood again, only this time the band pulls it off. The band saves the best for last. “Lucky Pierre” and “Kill/Birds” toy with enough angular rhythms and bombast to make them not only enjoyable, but good.
The more critical half of me tells me the only thing that even gives this band a chance is their willingness to keep things abrasive, and hence, somewhat interesting. I’m not entirely convinced there’s enough songwriting talent to sustain another, longer, LP, let alone a long career. But I cannot argue with the facts, and here they are: MTVM have at least an EP worth of strong, emotional songs that actually connect. And whether their fascination with fuzzy distortion, angular songs and shouted vocals has more to do with lack of songwriting prowess than a healthy revivalist attitude, that’s not my concern (nor should it be yours). If you like your emo distorted, charred, broken, and flawed, MTVM are more than happy to provide it.

Skywave – Seen it All

I’d like to think that music writers don’t have to waste hours of their lives hunting down obscure music only for the sake of firing a few critical harpoons at the bands they find. Shouldn’t we be cherishing the local heroes, basement-tapers, and general unknown-unheard brilliance just waiting to be discovered? Well, at least that’s what I’d LIKE to think. Unfortunately there is this little thing called a deadline, and thus great music sometimes must remain un-tapped barring a last minute submission (hint hint!). So what unheard music is left? At best, bands like Skywave. Derivative with a capital D, yet offering strong performance and an authentic feel for the music.

Skywave would probably like me to describe their music as “pulverizing walls of guitars, colliding in a sonic maelstrom – a musical supernova.” Such a description is deceptive, in part because they are not as loud or overwhelming as they think they are, and because it would fail to account for their infrequent forays into “oldies”-style kitsch and surfer-instrumentals. “Seen It All,” is more typical of the direction Skywave appears to be going in. Ever-more dense layers of sound, new extremes of volume, all mixed with a pop sensibility based on traditional A A B A chord progressions. The result is akin to Hydrocraft covering the Jesus and Mary Chain’s early output. The vocals sound as if they were sampled right off Psychocandy; compared in a blind sound-test, they’re about as different as Pepsi and Pepsi. Even though it sounds like Skywave is trying to play someone else’s music, they do play with an intuition lacking in many other groups.

It seems that what started as a style developed by a handful of bands (e.g. My Bloody Valentine) has been co-opted so often that it has become a genre in itself. Operating within this context, Skywave are a maturing and accomplished band that have fun playing together and performing; and where they are short on originality, they are big on heart.

The Appleseed Cast – Worcester – The Worcester Palladium, MA – 2001-12-15

Well, unlike Jeff a couple of weeks ago, at least I got to see all the bands on the bill tonight. But the show I had been looking forward to for weeks – and the show that had what I expected to be a spectacular bill – turned out to be something else entirely. Don’t ask why, just keep reading…

After Carl and I got pumped up for the show by cranking Planes Mistaken For Stars in my car as we waited for the line to start moving, trying to keep away from the frigid weather, we got inside and found a pleasant little spot by the bar. The tickets told us the show would start at 7:00, but nothing actually happened until 8:00, so we had to stand around for an hour and a half after making the lengthy drive to the hellhole that is Worcester, Mass., but I’ll stop complaining, for now. The Get Up Kids’ buddies from Kansas, Appleseed Cast, took the stage in front of an already packed house, playing to what they announced was their biggest crowd ever. The muddy mix caused some of the melodies to get lost, and the deeply woven textures and remarkable drumming that make the band so good on record floated away somewhere far from my ears. The setlist was void of anything from End of the Ring Wars, but I was excited to hear some of my other favorites, like “Blind Man’s Arrow,” “Forever Longing the Golden Sunsets,” “On Reflection” and “Santa Maria.” I was a little disappointed by the fact that the Cast’s set was only about half an hour long, since I could have watched and listened for much longer.

Then came Alkaline Trio, a band that has yet to disappoint me at a live show. New drummer Derek Grant (previously/currently of bands like The Suicide Machines, The Vandals, and many others) held his own, though I still adore the style of former drummer Mike Felumlee, who was ousted a few months ago. Singer/guitarist Matt Skiba pounded the hell out of his guitars like they were the source of all the evil he sings about, and singer/bassist Daniel Andriano flailed about slightly out of control. The crowd was equally energetic, urged into a frenzy by songs like “Stupid Kid” and “Armageddon,” after which Skiba confessed, “When I hit that high note, I almost shit my pants … I really did.” He also took time out to comment on his new guitar pedal board, praise the Palladium’s security guards, and tell everyone not to fight (“Let’s all give each other a hug”). They blasted through a lot of older material from Goddamnit, including favorites like “Cringe,” “Nose Over Tail,” and “Clavicle,” but also a great deal from Maybe I’ll Catch Fire (“You’ve Got So Far to Go,” “She Took Him to the Lake,” etc.) and From Here to Infirmary (“Private Eye,” “Take Lots with Alcohol,” “Mr. Chainsaw,” etc.), as well as “Queen of Pain,” from the forthcoming split EP with Hot Water Music that Jade Tree is releasing in January. Tons of energy, lots of connection with crowd, tight songs … I could have watched and listened to these guys for hours.

Honestly, I have grown a little concerned about what The Get Up Kids’ next album is going to sound like. I am worried they may try to pull a Saves the Day and go all soft and gooey on everyone. So naturally, I was curious to see them tonight and hear some of the songs from the forthcoming album. But what I ended up sitting through was far from what I expected. As they played “Valentine,” Matt Pryor sang it himself: “There is something wrong with this.”

First of all, the five new songs I heard tonight were nothing shy of disappointing. The new sound isn’t rough and punky like Four Minute Mile, and it isn’t poppy and punky like Something to Write Home About. Instead, it seems to be slow, textured, straightforward rock. For another band, it would have been fine, but not for these guys, and it showed in their performance. The best part about seeing The Get Up Kids live has always been their energy, which tonight was non-existent. James Dewees actually sat behind his keyboards rather than wildly flailing about as he usually does, and if you’ve ever seen him live, either with The Get Up Kids or with Reggie and the Full Effect, you’ll know how odd this was. Matt Pryor left the ground a couple of times while jumping around, but he and the entire band just seemed dull and lifeless. Between the new sound, the elaborate light show that Pryor referred to as “kick-ass groovy shit,” the shiny new instruments, and everything else, it just seems like these guys are getting too big for the venues they’re playing, and the worst part is that they seem to know it. It must have been all the time they have recently spent touring with bands like Weezer and Green Day.

Then there was the remainder of the setlist. Even the older songs seemed slower and stagnant. “Holiday” and “Ten Minutes” were the only songs that even came close to moving the crowd, while the remainder of the selections were the slower, cuter ones from the band’s catalog, like “Valentine,” “Out of Reach,” and so on, which are far from bad songs, but when the entire set is comprised of them, we have a problem. Everything just seemed tame. The worst of it was the fact that the crowd was treated to only a single song from Four Minute Mile, and as they have apparently been doing the entire tour, it was “Don’t Hate Me,” complete with pieces of a Jay-Z song foolishly tossed into the instrumental break. It was as if they picked the songs for the show with no regard for the band’s old fans, but instead for possible MTV viewers. There were several sing-alongs, including the one time I smiled, which was before “Out of Reach,” when Pryor told about how the doctor had found lumps on his vocal chords earlier that day: “This is kind of a Carrabba thing to do, but if you guys could help me out and sing, that would be cool,” referring to Dashboard Confessional’s Chris Carrabba, who has a tendency to leave the majority of the singing to the crowd at his live shows. Still, the audience barely moved, which I have never seen happen at a Get Up Kids show before. I could tell I was not alone in my feelings of disappointment when I saw many people head for the doors before the band even got around the their cover song-filled encore and the predictable closer, since they were in Massachusetts, “Mass Pike.”

At one point in the show, Matt Pryor mentioned that Ozzy was playing next door at the Worcester Centrum. I don’t think I was the only one that, in the middle of The Get Up Kids’ set, considered going over to see if I could still scalp a ticket.

The Get Up Kids – Lackawanna – Sideshow Music Hall, NY – 2001-12-14

Boy, was this ever a much worse night than expected. For one thing, Lackawanna is closer to Niagara Falls than Buffalo, more than an hour and a half from Rochester. The way there, it was raining and sleeting. The way back, it was snowing, and the roads were miserable. It took me a day to track down the location of this place, which appears to be the back room to a banquet hall. The only information I found was from Ticketmaster, which said the show started at 9 pm. So we arrived at 8:15 or so, along with everyone else. It was a mass of people standing in the rain in a parking lot that turned into one giant puddle, all waiting to get in for an excellent show that was to feature the band I most wanted to see – Appleseed Cast – opening for The Get Up Kids.
We got in along with everyone else, and the place filled up. About 9 or so, the band took the stage, and it was The Get Up Kids. I wasn’t the only one looking a bit confused. Apparently, Appleseed Cast had already played. The band thanked them for a great show, anyway, and someone said as we were leaving how good they had been. But who ever heard of a band going on at 7 pm, especially when the show was advertised for 9? This wasn’t a youth center or some other place where you might find an early show. This was a giant room with a bar. I missed Appleseed Cast. Boy was I pissed.

Why? Because there was no way in hell I would have driven that long through that kind of weather just to see The Get Up Kids. I’ve seen them several times, and I like the Kids. They’re a fun band, and their shows have always been fun before. But they’re not good enough to be the only band on the bill, and again they proved it.

First of all, this facility was one giant room without sound padding, meaning every drum beat reverberated around the room. I enjoy loud music, but I hate feeling it. By the end of the show, my legs felt like rubber from the reverberations of sound bouncing up off the floor. The band kept adjusting the sound throughout their hour and a half set, and it still sounded mostly like drums.

But yeah, The Get Up Kids are a good band. Playing almost exclusively songs from their Red Letter Day EP and more recent, their show was highlighted by several new songs. Oddly enough, unlike their Something to Write Home About full-length that was more pop than anything, their new songs were much more straightforward rock. I swear, the last song to their main set sounded like Pink Floyd.

A lot of slow songs really broke up the set, unfortunately, and maybe the wet, unhappy crowd wasn’t open to those songs. Only the fast songs got the crowd energetic. Their main set – before that last, textured rock song – finished up with “I’m a Loner, Dottie, a Rebel” and the only song from their first full-length, Four Minute Mile, “Don’t Hate Me.” And here came my second big complaint with this show.

“Don’t Hate Me” was the song that brung ‘em, their big hit that everyone knew and loved. Sure, bands get tired of playing the same old songs, but it’s part of the job, and the fans loved the song. But then, at the end of it, they break into some half-hearted spoof of Jay-Z’s rap hit, the one with the “H to the izzay, V to the izzo” or whatever. It was amusing, but it was also a slap in the face to their old fans. They mocked their longtime fans by getting stupid on their best and first hit. And at an earlier point, when the most energetic fans up front called for “Coming Clean,” they said basically, “We played that one. In ‘98, with MxPx. Where were you?”

So the Kids finished up their encore with one mediocre song from Red Letter Day and three covers, doing The Cure, The Replacements, and David Bowie, perhaps showing their bent back toward straight-forward rock. And while the whole show, they were tight and energetic, they never did more than bounce up and down and play the same songs they play a million times. Yeah, I still like The Get Up Kids, but they really turned me off this night, and after the disappointment of missing Appleseed Cast, their song choice and mocking hit to their old fans sure didn’t hit me right. Knowing I had two hours of driving 40 mph through the snow home didn’t help either. Not the best night for this show at all.

The Go-Betweens – The Friends of Rachel Worth

First, an apology to Jetset. We were supposed to review this album months ago, but it was sent along with others to be reviewed by an eager contributor who was never heard from again. But better late than never, right?
A co-worker came into my office while I was playing this album and said, jokingly, are you listening to 70’s music? I replied that the band had actually played in the 80’s. Knowing my normal music taste, she looked surprised. But really, this band formed in 1978, so I guess it is 70’s music. That’s a long time ago, and it’s been a long time since their last album – since 1989, in fact. But it is obvious that this band’s music is firmly rooted in their 80’s days and influenced by the best pop of the 60’s and 70’s.
The original members, Robert Forster and Grant McLennan are reunited on this band’s seventh album, and they’ve received help from Sleater-Kinney’s Janet Weiss on guitar (as well as Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker contributing here and there) and Quasi’s Sam Coomes on keyboards. Although I am not familiar with their earlier albums, this one definitely harkens back to those early 80’s days, with influences from the Beatles and Beach Boys to Bob Dylan. But there’s a more modern feel to these pop songs, evoking sweet popsters like Belle & Sebastian. The songs are warm and charming, each based around a purely pop structure and catchy choruses. This band obviously knows how to write a good pop song, despite their break between recording as The Go-Betweens, and this album showcases those abilities. And while their influences on these songs are obviously quite different, each song is impeccably done.
“Magic in Here” starts off very quiet and subtle, using soft guitars and sweet, folk-like melodies. And the use of strings during the chorus really add an endearing quality to this little gem. “Spirit” is even more folk-inspired, using acoustic guitar and putting the emphasis on the vocals. And while those first two songs set a somber, more mellow approach, “The Clock” really starts things off. This track has something of a garage rock guitar line but a simple, sweet pop melody and an intensely catchy chorus. “German Farmhouse” sounds like a Lou Reed song, to me, with all sorts of late 70’s attitude soulful rock. “Heart and Home” uses soft vocal harmonies with a pretty 70’s style pop beat, reminding me of something by a band like the Yardbirds. Then there’s “Surfing Magazines,” which is odd, a sort of playful, quirky pop song. “Orpheus Beach” uses keyboards and soft, throbbing beats to create a very pretty, very lush pop song, probably the second-best on the album, behind “Going Blind,” a nearly perfect bouncy, playful and yet charming pop song. This is the one that you’ll be hearing in your head for the next two weeks after listening to this album, singing along in the shower and at work until your co-workers are convinced you’re insane (true story). And the closer, “When She Sang About Angels,” is a soft, acoustic pop song with dabblings of strings, and it has a kind of heartwrenching quality and mentions Kurt Cobain.
This is nice stuff. Sometimes, it takes a band that’s been around for more than 20 years to make a stellar pop album. After all, you can’t call their style retro. They’ve been playing pop music this way since the last 70’s. With a variety of influences and styles, The Go-Betweens are back with a fun, pretty, and enticingly sweet pop album that probably makes that 12-year wait worthwhile.

Mom and Dad – Read My Shirt

Originality isn’t everything, especially when it is not synonymous with quality. Listening to Mom and Dad is a frustrating experience. The disjointed and intentionally sloppy layering of “instruments” brings to mind little precedent. The sense of illogical genius present in Captain Beefheart, the Butthole Surfers, or U.S. Maple is absent here. Creating music solely for yourself can yield pure results; however, you run the risk of creating a language that, while entirely your own, is inaccessible to any other listener. Music too organized to be noise for the sake of noise, you find yourself looking for context or content which is intentionally obscured or abridged. Mom and Dad confirm your worst fears by putting out music that is bad on purpose. Part of a vast Internet subculture full of young solo acts consisting of little more than a couple instruments and some computer sound editing software, the variety of offbeat sounds and lyrics is endless. Surf on over to Mp3.com sometime to see what I mean. Mom and Dad are just one of countless groups fitting this description.

“Read My Shirt” is not as vaguely offensive as songs like “Bubblelips,” which mocks Southern culture as well as rap music artists, but it does share a general sloppy approach combined with a theme reminiscent of the dark side of high school social interaction. The music is repetitive and caustic, albeit more annoying than aggressive. Indecipherable vocals mask lyrics that sound just as improvised as the rest of the music. Several drones add to the din including a man humming and atmospheric electronic sounds. The percussion is organic, persistent, and unidentifiable in source. Guitar riffs occasionally betray an ability that is stifled for the sake of confusion, and the whole song is full of silly interjections such as a man farting with his mouth. The damage seems senseless but a little fun, like smashing up your car with a hammer.

Listening to bands like Mom and Dad is a good way to travel to the far flung armpits of America without actually going there. Only growing up in such a place could account for the skewed and highly individual musical demolition that results.

Quiet American – Gurgle

“My goal with Quiet American is to sketch in sound the experience of being in an unfamiliar place.” So writes Aaron Thieme in his brief synopsis of his artistic sound endeavor. When you say “sound-sculpture” to someone, they are likely to bring up images of stuffy and elaborate installations by Brian Eno or the academic meandering of David Toop. Another rendering of the term refers to the artful manipulation of “found-sound” artifacts, both mundane and mysterious – sounds that animate empty rural spaces and embody the alien qualities of our invisible urban landscapes.

Quiet American recontextualizes these very raw (as in unadulterated) sound elements in a way that connotes specific emotions that the listener/performer has associated with these sounds. The manipulated songs then form a loose narrative that serves as a framework to give us a taste of the “exotic,” without stranding us in an unfamiliar land. Thus, sounds that would seem alien are rendered to have a more comprehensible artistic meaning, while being transformed into more benign cultural artifacts. Life itself becomes a means of creative expression, evoking the colors of our perception of reality instead of coldly recreating those elements of reality that are readily available for transcription. Ironically, the content of reality must be manipulated in order to retain its meaning. So despite how sparse and pure some of these sounds are, their meaning is more important than their aural accuracy. In this way, Thieme allows the listener to smell, to taste, and to feel what he has recorded, and even rarer – to hear the potential music within all sound. More than just a travelogue, these recordings represent a vivid diary of the experience of travel.

“Gurgle” is a patchwork of audio, left over after all the other field recordings had been treated and assembled in his other pieces. Even here, Thieme’s musical conception is branded deep into the resulting composition; and, while not exactly a ’song,’ the field recordings are painstakingly assembled, pitting the electronic rhythmic processing of rushing water against a snippet of flute that is cautiously looped and extended. The Quiet American will have you running out to buy a minidisc and a pair of binaurals to sample YOUR life.

Tizzy – Down with the Furies

Only after I was able to get over the fact that Tizzy is not and will never be a death metal band (the dark and blurry cover combined with the album title…) was I able to enjoy their music. With their dual female vocals, Tizzy shares similarities with the likes of Sleater-Kinney’s recent work. But compared to that almost universally praised band, Tizzy is less focused, darker, and more on the chord-poppy than finger pick-angular side. Perhaps the biggest contrast between the two bands is Tizzy’s use of bass and love for extreme tempo changes.

Tizzy consists of Jen Stavely on bass and vocals, Teri Morris on drums and vocals, and Joel Boultinghouse on guitar. The straightforward “Reminders for the Reactive” starts off Down with the Furies with fast tempo. “Pushing Positive” lightens things up with a harmless “You’re No Rock ‘n Roll Fun” nature, “A cold beer on a cold day / Outside in a parking lot / I felt like a queen and not so mean / As I decide what I am and what I’m not.” Then comes “Forgiveness is a Curse,” which is a little too punk, not sounding like the same Tizzy that I was introduced to on the album’s first two songs. Fortunately, the bass-driven pop/punk of that song breaks into a pleasant vocal harmonization, reminiscent of That Dog. But the song ends in the same punky way that started the song.

Stavely reveals her frustration with the work life in the half slow and droning, half fast and guitar-driven, “Work Ethic”: “I feel driven as I drive to work / To make good and earn my keep / But then I wonder why as life is passing me by / What it’s worth when my big reward is sleep?” One of Down with the Furies’ more interesting songs is “Turnstile Girl,” which alternates from the slowly spooky to the jagged, with dark lyrics like “Split like bone / Stick like skin.” That bass-driven punk found in “Forgiveness is a Curse” makes its return on the instrumental “Econoline.” This song too detracts from the overall sound Tizzy creates with the other songs.

“The Day Duran Duran Finally Came to Town” pleases mainly because it is about a subject that I can relate to: the 80s. “Slow syrup songs and sticky synth licks / I had to have my pubescent fix / Throw merchandise and memories into the mix / Who was your favorite? / Mine was Nick.” Although it is among the album’s more memorable songs, Down with the Furies‘ strongest track is the ever-evolving “Half Step Century.” The song is dark and aggressive, involving fractured vocalism for the majority of the song. But with just over a minute of the five-minute song remaining, it evolves into an airy dream. The album ends with “Fighting in the Bookstore,” which has too many tempo changes to count on one hand, and “Shopping Car Joyride,” the most accessible of the 11 songs that makes reference to Husker Du.

Down with the Furies is not terribly innovative for being released in 2001. It has a very familiar sound that fans of Sleater-Kinney and That Dog will take to. And I recommend it to fans of those bands.

Golden Famile – S/T

Picture a storm slowly rumbling into the sky above you. You see it coming, and you wait without being able to do anything about it. Once it arrives, it brings darkness with it, pounding down upon all that is below. It occasionally wavers, leaving respites of the eerily calm sort, just before it plunges you into darkness again. Well, not to be melodramatic, but that is kind of what Golden Famile feels like.
Golden Famile is a band based out of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and its members have been together for less than a year, with this self-titled effort being their first album. In terms of instruments, they each cover their own share of ground. Darrell handles vocals, guitars, banjo, acordiorgan, organ, and some percussion. Rich takes care of the remaining guitars, bass guitar, organ, harmonica, ukulele and other percussion. Meanwhile, Mike is in charge of the drumming and assorted other “shaky things.” Musically, they sound as if they came straight from the dark and dreary woods of Canada, combining songs that seem to suit the simplicity of being played on the back porch with those that are built upon more complicated guitar dynamics.
Either way, at the root of Golden Famile’s charm is the band’s simplicity. There is plenty of rootsy folk flavor, as you could have probably surmised from the list of instruments being used, but the odd blend of instrumentation mixes nicely with the standard drums, bass, guitar, and vocals to create something uniquely accessible for a group of three guys that have barely gotten to know each other yet. Still, as the band creeps out of those dark woods, each member brings a bit of darkness with them, which is obvious in the eerie quality of the music they create.
From the organ solo that is the opening track, “Can’t You See Me/Lost and Lonely,” to the bizarre closer, “Rattlesnakes,” which is a quirky instrumental built around the sounds of a frightening carnival, Golden Famile has an air of intelligent uniqueness about them. The slightly out-of-time rhythms of “Hipsters with Machine Guns” and a handful of other minor slip-ups show a band that hasn’t quite grown into its mold yet but is well on its way.

Trembling Blue Stars – Alive to Every Smile

To be honest, it’s really easy to not pay much attention to the lyrics of most songwriters. As most rhyme scrawlers in the rock canon are simply not that creative, I’m generally happy to focus on the quality of musicianship or melodic/sonic dynamics and wait for the rare Dylan or Waits to come skipping down the lane with a top-hat full of thought-provoking verse. In fact, most lyrics probably don’t even register in my head, unless, of course, they are very clever or very stupid. The Trembling Blue Stars don’t fall into either of these categories, yet even for someone who chooses to mostly ignore lyrics, there is no escaping the pervasive tone of this album. And it’s somewhat, shall we say, depressing.

Wallowing knee deep in self-pity and dour pop melodies, the Trembling Blue Stars make music for all who have ever nearly lost their minds over any of the torturous items filed under “relationship problems.” The extent that lead singer/songwriter/sensitive guy Bob Wratten follows this approach, sending out 10 songs that read like a forbidden shoebox full of the most achingly sincere love letters you’ve ever read, is somewhat disconcerting and almost makes the listener feel somewhat guilty, as if you have no right to know this much about a person you’ve never met. He can’t go anywhere, look at anything, think about anyone, or take a stroll around his neighborhood without being reminded of how much he has been hurt by his last lover or how much he still wants to be with her. And he wants you to know about it, too.

Of course, all of that is forgivable, as lost love has certainly been a constant in popular songs over the years. What is a little hard to look past is the way in which he presents his pain, which is generally posited upon a fairly innocuous din of soft electronic and acoustic instruments. This being only the latest edition in the ever-changing Trembling Blue Stars lineup, former Field Mice leader Bob Wratten knows his way around a nice melody and a sour sentiment, he just doesn’t blow you away with his musical dynamic and the poignancy of his vision. He’s a writer of pop songs, somewhere between Morrisey and McCartney, with modern production techniques thrown in on top, and he’s fairly good at what he does. He doesn’t seem to be enjoying it much, though.

With synths, acoustic guitars, sequencers, drums, and nice, if not exemplary, melodies, Wratten crafts nice songs in a world that already has a few thousand too many. Tracks like the delicate “Here All Day” or the breezy “With Every Story” place the listener squarely in Wratten’s unthreatening world of enveloping lovesickness yet probably won’t knock you over with the nature of its melody, texture, or imagery. More pleasant is the warm organ and live drums of “Ammunition,” with the rather commonplace metaphor of the narrator having his words fired back at him or the consistently excellent backup vocals of Beth Arzy on tracks like “The Ghost of An Unkissed Kiss” (what a romantic!) or “Maybe After All.” Still, most of the songs are just a little too similar to the ones they rest beside in the set list, more or less evoking each other in sound and spirit.

Overall, heartbreak and quiet longing that doesn’t give way to anger or hopeful resolve isn’t that interesting. Sure, it’s understandable, but not something that you probably want to dwell on for 45 minutes without a sizable musical payoff. If its songwriting was just pushed a little further in any one direction, Alive to Every Smile would be more than just a nice pop record. Ultimately, you get the feeling that Wratten almost revels in this sort of sadness, which makes it somewhat hard to pity him much. In short, you can’t help but feel his pain and feel somewhat bad for him, just as you might hum along with his expression of that pain in the process, but at the end of the day, you’re just as likely to thank your lucky stars you aren’t plagued by the misfortunes presented by his particularly sensitive muse.

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