REVIEW: Lullaby for the Working Class, Song
(Saddle Creek / Bar/None)
- Chris Hill
Lullaby defies easy categorization - sadgrass is a common appellation, but "sad" misses the mark. The band's albums display a willingness to experiment that enchants with such beauty that "sad" is inappropriate. The "grass" portion applies, though, both for the band's Nebraskan roots and the organic nature of their work. A core of guitar, violin, banjo, upright bass, drums, and cello are accompanied by a myriad of other sounds: glockenspiel, pedal steel, clarinet, piano, and hammer dulcimer, to name the guests most often seen at the party.
Take these instruments, then scatter ambient sound around like seeds, and something magical grows. Blanket Warm, their first, ended with eight minutes of cricket noises, recorded to preserve a back porch's ambiance before it was blacktopped. The third part of "The Man vs. the Tide", the closer on their second album, was recorded at the end of a cross-country tour, live on a Pacific Ocean shoreline, while seagulls and planes passed overhead, and waves murmured in the background.
The recording craftsmanship deserves mention: brothers and Lullaby members Mike and A.J. Mogis constructed their own recording studio in a Nebraskan basement, and humorously dubbed it Whoopass. The Lullaby albums have all been recorded and mixed there, as well as those of other bands on the band's collective label, Saddle Creek Records (whose other artists include Bright Eyes, The Faint, and Cursive).
This sonic wonderland comes with a well-read, eclectic lyricist in singer Ted Stevens. Reading the lyrics is like a journey through Eliot's "The Waste Land", where single, simple lines echo with precise allusion and powerful emotion: "You pocket all your sympathy/and use it all to sharpen up your blades", "lift up your shirt/and compare your wounds with mine", "when the dishes fly/I will bless your awful aim", "Words drip from lips hardly parted/stumble over the feet in their path", "here we stand now, years later/like reluctant historians/and progress is just a better means by which/they can keep track of/ what we owe/what we own". All past favorite examples.
So, to say this new album was awaited impatiently is an understatement.
Lullaby's third album sees a natural evolution presaged by "The Ebb & Flow, the Come & Go, the To & Fro" 7", the single released in the space before this album, and after the beautiful I Never Even Asked for Light. A meditation on society, philosophy, and a dozen more concepts, the single's lyrics were backed by an equal number of instruments for an album's worth of depth in two short sides.
With Song, the experience of being enveloped by a work of art remains the same, and grows with every listen. The album opens with "Expand, Contract", a perfect segue from the 7". A slow build from silence, then the song appears, coming into blossom once the words "Can you tell me what is real?" are delivered.
On "Kitchen Song", Shane Aspegren's rattletrap drums play against a quartet of two cellists and two violinists. A.J. Mogis' backing vocals are a strong presence here and elsewhere, and the album benefits for the matured interplay between his and Stevens' voices. Stevens, in particular, has grown into his voice, which is closer to the songs' forefront than previous output.
A gift for observing and capturing transitory moments occurs throughout the record. "In the hot July of the city night/bats will strike mosquitoes/in the haze of the floodlights/pointed up at the cathedral". "Inherent Song" ties this image together with human chaos and man's attempt to use song to connect with nature. More verbose than Hemingway, the lyrics reflect a common gift for placing the listener/reader at the scene with immediate details.
For all the verse/chorus/verse structure found herein, the album's tone is more philosophical than the vignettes of previous releases. The lyrics aren't there to provide solutions, but rather, to spark thoughtful introspection. Take "Seizures", for example. The song asks unanswerable questions, with the solutions not found in an everyday world, but in physical fits of religious ecstasy. "In seizures we might gain true visions/ of all that is absolute and senseless".
The track glides easily into the next, "Non Serviam", a gentle plea to a friend: "Like Christ Quixote on horseback/we take ourselves too seriously.../bitter fallen boy/you must let it go". It's a quiet song, easily overshadowed by it's comrades, but its understated power realizes itself with time.
"Asleep on the Subway" muses on fellow passengers, their roles and interconnections, moving forward with their lives while the train physically transports them onward. "Sketchings on a Bar Room Napkin" sees a character named Ulysses expounding on his distant travels to a bar room downing cheap suds and watching a flickering tv set. It's a nice juxtaposition of the heroic and the mundane.
Fellow Nebraskan Josh Rouse's distinctive voice is recognizable on "Ghosts", but not distracting - adding more in its reserve than it would in full-blown accompaniment. Rouse, whose work with Lambchop's Kurt Wagner produced the recent and delightful Chester EP, has toured with Lullaby in the past. A friendship between the two is easy to understand - both band and singer favor music with multiple layers under a surface of glistening strings, brass, and guitar.
The magical combination of bowed and stringed instruments in the Lullaby live experience is not to be missed. Hearing them soundcheck with the opening to "The Queen of the Long-Legged Insects" raised goosebumps on their last tour. I can't wait for the translation of the new album. http://www.saddle-creek.com for band, tour, and vinyl info, http://www.bar-none.com if you want the cd versions.
