REVIEW: Michael Penn, MP4 (Days Since A Lost Time Accident) (Epic)
- Jon Steltenpohl
Michael Penn's latest album is the aptly titled MP4 (Days Since A Lost Time Accident). It's a collection of 10 new songs which are just business as usual for this endearing artist. If you've ever liked Michael Penn, MP4 gives you more of what you'd expect. Penn takes the safe and narrow road of writing reflective pop songs with dense lyrics and a punchy acoustic guitar. No accidents here.
In fact, the worst thing you can say about MP4 is that it remains formulaic and predictable for Penn. But, if you got snared a decade ago by Penn's hit, "No Myth," you won't mind a little consistency from Penn. His particular blend of pop sensibility, lyrical complexity, and drab viewpoint gives Penn a depth beyond what you might expect from a "one hit wonder."
Penn focuses as much on lyrical poetry as he does on melody. Buried within his songs are depths of rhyming and alliteration that are rarely seen in modern music or poetry. Although sometimes they are a bit contrite ("Don't Let Me Go" has the phrase "Oh fuck/ got stuck/ you lose/ tough luck"), some of the lyrics are brilliant. In "Out of It's Misery," Penn writes "If you take my devotion/ and figure it as something you're due to accrue/ it's only emotion winding up the motion we are going through." As always, regardless of the complexity of the lyrics, the theme of Penn's work is dysfunctional love.
Musically, Penn's sound is a bit more complicated on this release than on previous work. There's a "wall of sound" feel to MP4, and the simple interplay between Penn's guitar and Patrick Warren's keyboards is nearly gone. At the end of "Beautiful," Warren "deconstructs" the melody brilliantly with the sounds of an out of tune piano. But, it really doesn't have the same feel of some of their earlier collaborations. For the most part, Warren's keyboards are hidden behind conventional sounds or used only for adding "atmosphere."
MP4 is a typical album from Michael Penn. If anything, the simplicity and stark earnestness of his previous work is lost a bit. He seems to be experimenting a bit in the studio, but the extra sounds tend to distract as much as entice. Ultimately, MP4 is an album that won't give Penn any new hits but is another solid, reliable release.
