Sorry About Dresden Let It Rest Mike Pastore, MUSE Staff
If you’re not sure who Sorry About Dresden are, don’t worry, because from the sound of it, they’re not quite sure yet either. With their roots in Chapel Hill, the scene that spawned underground hits like Superchunk and Ryan Adams’ Whiskey Town, Sorry About Dresden are unknowns with some big, better-known shoes to fill singer Matt Oberst is Bright Eyes’s Conor Oberst’s older brother.
Rather than being daunted by potential expectations or comparisons, Sorry About Dresden brush them off, shelling out an album of songs that dodge classification into any distinct musical category, yet failing to establish an identity for the band. The result is an album that is respectable but overall, inconsequential.
Produced by Brian Paulson, who worked on Wilco’s debut A.M. and Beck’s Odelay, the band’s Let it Rest is pop without the strong hooks, and punk without any real bearing. Over rollicking beats and fuzzy guitars matched by Oberst’s gruff vocals, the songs come and go without leaving a mark. Even stronger showings, including ‘Sick and Sore,’ and ‘When You Cared’ are mostly unmemorable and outnumbered by the less impressive cuts.
‘Frozen in Mid-Gesture’ sounds frozen in mid-conception, mistaking a sparse arrangement as an excuse for an only partially formulated song. Their own ‘Going for the Gold’ would be good advice: until they raise the stakes, Sorry About Dresden will remain a quality opening band, but never the headliner.
Ani DiFranco Evolve Robert Watson, MUSE staff
And so it goes: another year, another new Ani DiFranco CD. The prolific singer-songwriter continues her shift away from folk-rock toward jazz and blues on her new release, Evolve. As in 2001’s unwieldy double album, Revelling/Reckoning, DiFranco, despite her DIY reputation, employs a full band, including a smattering of horn players.
The titular evolution may speak to DiFranco’s newfound mastery of instruments other than guitar she even tickles the ivories for the first time ever on ‘O My My.’ Unfortunately, the evolution also seems to have directed DiFranco away from the pinpoint-sharp melodies that marked her great mid-90s work.
The songs on Evolve are discursive, with a jazzy improv feel, but mostly they feel like a pretty flimsy clothesline upon which DiFranco hangs her greatest strength: lyrics.
DiFranco has always been one of music’s most passionate political commentators, an intelligent progressive voice that only occasionally veers into histrionics. Here, her passion seems to be drifting toward cynicism, which may simply be a reflection of the current atmosphere regarding progressive politics.
Within this context, ‘Serpentine,’ a rambling, 10-minute rant, emerges as the album’s most memorable track. In it, she spouts off on some of her favorite issues, tossing off such tastily rabble-rousing bon mots as, ‘And Uncle Sam is rigging cockfights/ In the promised land,’ and, ‘The music industry mafia is pimping girl power/ Sniping off sharpshooter singles from their styrofoam towers.’
DiFranco’s eloquent, unique voice makes her one of the most consistently fascinating artists at work today. Evolve, however, proves yet again that her body of work is more impressive than many of its individual parts.
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