Music

CD Review Revue

R.E.M.
Reveal
(Warner Bros.)
****

Up, R.E.M.'s 1998 release (the first without drummer Bill Berry), was an album that begged even die-hard fans to meet its moody, sometimes meandering song work halfway--if not with understanding, then with a beloved tolerance for an experimental reconstruction of the familiar. And there are many Up-like elements on Reveal: lush orchestration, full of swelling string arrangements and electronic ambience; an emphasis on percussion rather than straight-ahead drumming; a deep reverence for the classic Americana loveliness of Pet Sounds. Sugar-sweet, buoyant pop songs alternate with the sorts of diffused, reverberant explorations of abstract lyrical confession that Michael Stipe first tried out on Green's "World Leader Pretend." Late-summer sunshine and memory (both as nostalgia and elegy) suffuse this very pretty album, especially in such harmonic explorations of uplift as "Summer Turns to High" and "Imitation of Life." As a whole, Reveal holds together splendidly, evincing the thematic and instrumental coherence of R.E.M.'s greatest late-period album, Automatic for the People. No contemporary band has so continuously and successfully redefined itself while maintaining such vitality and dignity. RICK LEVIN

THE DARK FANTASTIC
Goodbye Crooked Scar
(Up Records)
***1/2

Forget the fact that the Dark Fantastic's Mark Pickerel has done time playing drums with Northwest bands like Screaming Trees and Truly. With Goodbye Crooked Scar, the Dark Fantastic's second album, frontman Pickerel reveals himself to be a hopeless romantic (with the emphasis on hopeless), gracefully painting stories of lonely souls falling "out of empty bottles and into empty beds." Like the Swans' Michael Gira, Pickerel inhabits a world where redemption is always in sight but just out of reach; unlike Gira, Pickerel is more clear-eyed troubadour than nihilistic avenger. Goodbye Crooked Scar evokes the late-night loneliness of Mark Lanegan's solo work and the desperate high-plains yowl of the Gun Club (with whom Pickerel briefly played before Jeffrey Lee Pierce's death). Goodbye Crooked Scar is haunting and haunted. BARBARA MITCHELL

THE LIES
Resigned
(Kill Rock Stars)
***

Joy Division and early New Order come to mind here (Power, Corruption & Lies most specifically). Which is an easy way of going about dismissing San Francisco's the Lies. Indeed, Resigned, the band's second full-length release on Kill Rock Stars, is self-consciously post-punk/gothic, full of drone, mope, analog synths, and one-dimensional (amateurish) guitar lines. But you ate that shit up in the late '70s and early '80s for a reason, and Resigned is a good, dark, stylized reminder of the past--when goths were creative and not just sad, and their songs felt punk-rock radical. Songs like "A Certain Surround" and the opener, "Accident & Emergency," start with repetition to create mood and work into anthemic melody--everything is grandiose here, even as it feels simultaneously minimalist. The keyboard sounds allow for a winking bombast, and the lyrics, while mostly dark and unhappy (Dale Shaw apparently wrote the 10 songs about 10 different relationships he's had) are often coyly suggestive and playful, as on "Accident & Emergency": "When we've got friends like you who needs enemies?" The record is slow-moving. The drums are understated and even exhausted at times. The best thing about music like this is that one never knows if the players are really bad or really, really good. Usually, as with the Lies, it's a bit of both. JEFF DeROCHE

DOLOUR
Waiting for a World War
(Sonic Boom Recordings)
***

When I saw Dolour perform live a few months ago, I thought here's a cute, young band in love with all eras of Brit Pop--from the British Invasion to the early-'90s Manchester explosion to Oasis and Belle & Sebastian. Singer Shane Tutmarc played a Rickenbacker, had a bowl cut, wore a puffy coat, and bobbed along to the music while sporting a fake mustache that he wore, I assumed, to show he was making light of his obvious devotion to his influences. Tutmarc's debut album is far less compelling than his live persona. However that's not to say the songs on Waiting for a World War aren't enjoyable. In addition to the other references, he's now showing his love for bands spawned of the Elephant 6 collective. No, the songs found this listener wishing for the ability to speed time, in order to arrive at a place when Tutmarc's obvious talents have matured and his influences have solidified into a songwriting style recognizable as his own. KATHLEEN WILSON

Buy Tickets for Other Events