This is an eerily spaced-out body of acoustic-based music, by turns languid, lyrical, rootsy, and bracing, often in unexpected places. The actual singing is resplendent in
Everly Brothers
-style harmonies, all transposed to a post-psychedelic setting that
Don
and
Phil
never embraced.
Nick Thorburn
Jim Guthrie
mix their voices in eerily lyrical fashion backed by low-wattage (or no-wattage) instrumentation, doing songs which seem to speak to variant states-of-mind and consciousness -- think of
the Everlys
treading into the spacier
Graham Nash
/
David Crosby
territory circa 1970, but with a peculiar pop edge. The album opener
"The Sound"
recalls the tone of the
Traveling Wilburys
'
"Handle with Care"
in its good-natured, gentle introductory vibe. They claim a strong debt to R&B and doo wop but that's a little hard to hear for the first third of the CD -- what is plainer throughout is that someone has finally delivered a follow-up to
the Beach Boys
Friends
album, dwelling on moments and sensibilities that slip past most of us in the normal course of a day. And in the course of plunging into those moments,
Guthrie
Thorburn
become funny as often as they are profound --
"What World"
could almost pass for a slice-of-life vignette song by
Lisa Kudrow
's
Phoebe Buffay
on
.
"Sleep Talking"
finally gets us to a doo wop-laced sound that's totally beguiling in this acoustic setting -- it leads us into the relatively high-wattage title track, a rootsy rocker with a beat, a high haunt-count and a great break. And then, for the second half, it's back to what
CSN&Y
used to call "wooden music," on
"My Beach,"
"Ode to Abner,"
"Pretty Hair,"
etc. The folkiest piece here is
"Duties of a Lighthouse Keeper,"
the music of which sounds like something that should have been written by the late
Stan Rogers
. It all ends with
"I Wish I Knew,"
on a serious note about communication and perceptions, which sums up the entire record. ~ Bruce Eder