|
***A gentle, half-concept album about the ghosts of lead singer Brandon Durham's hometown of Cedar Park, Texas, Cedarland sleepily mixes crystalline pop and delicate instrumentation. It's an American rock record that channels-- almost accidentally-- the spring-rain melancholy of every British LP you clung to for dear life in the early '80s. Cedarland recalls the depth of Joy Division with the quiet, ethereal luster of Galaxie 500, Bedhead, and even Brian Eno circa Another Green World, while Durham's overarching theme is calmly and resolutely worked out through the course of these 11 picture-perfect pop songs. Palaxy Tracks' first record, The Long Wind Down (Grey Flat, 2000) was alternately wispy and angular, swimming with shimmering hooks, and shot through with searing, Bedhead-esque starbursts of distorted guitar; it earned the band an avid local fanbase and was named the best Texas record of 2000 by The Austin Chronicle. After the band relocated to Chicago, guests from The Sea and Cake, Archer Prewitt, Poi Dog Pondering, Okkervil River, and Shearwater were enlisted to help with Cedarland. The result further textures their supple indie-rock grooves with such chamber-pop trimmings as Mellotron, singing saw, lap steel, mandolin, and Wurlitzer, creating a record whose lush instrumentation and intimate, pillowy warmth should share the shelf with early Belle and Sebastian or recent Yo La Tengo. Durham's wistful croon mixes a timbre close to Ian Curtis's with a smoother, breathier tone that recalls Neil Halstead, or maybe K.J McKillop of Moose. His voice both distinctive and totally unaffected, Durham's singing and lovelorn songwriting invite the listener into a personal space. Cedarland is a vision of rainy English skies, viewed from beneath Texas's wide, clear, blue ones. |
