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| REVIEWS |
The
Dears
No Cities Left
(spinART)
Sometimes there are albums that you really want to like. You
really do. You keep giving it a chance and say, "You know
what, the second, third and fourth time this will probably be
an awesome album." Sometimes it is. But No Cities Left
is not. You could say that this album is, to use a phrase that
is thrown around constantly, "highly anticipated."
Rolling Stone said Montreal's The Dears are one of the new bands
to watch. They missed the mark on this one. The most accurate
description of Murray A. Lightburn's band is 'drab.' The stuff
is boring. The Smiths heavily influence Lightburn, and the somewhat
recent beatification of the Smiths and Morrissey could be one
of the reasons for the Dears' buzz. But the band ends up sounding
like a rip-off of the aforementioned artists combined with a
rip-off of "Mother"-era Pink Floyd. And neither of
the imitations is close enough to sound good.
Lightburn, in addition to writing pretentious epics that fall
on their face, describes the album in the liner notes as "Written
and Directed by Murry A. Lightburn." Lightburn needs some
direction himself-- he can't decide what type of singer he should
be. His low, laid-back voice is as dull as a Thanksgiving parade,
and when he tries to scream he sounds like a 16-year-old at
a screamo concert desperately trying to sing along; yelling
doesn't suit him. Sometimes he sings a bit higher, louder and
with more intensity, but this sounds like it's out of a Broadway
show tune. His falsetto wavers, but is probably the most pleasing.
The female vocalist, Natalia Yanchak, is just as dull.
The pretentious quality surfaces when you realize that the swirling
music in each attempted epic is supported only by cliché
lyrics that take themselves way too seriously. Lines such as
"I then arrived 10 minutes early with no smokes and I was
broke, with no smoke" (cue saxophone interlude with "la
la la"s) and "It's me. It's you. It's me. It's you.
It's me. It's you" don't hold up against the music. The
repetition of the lyrics just makes matters worse. "It
won't ever be what we want," 10 times in a row (very slowly),
is not poignant enough to carry itself through repetition. Neither
is "Never destroy us" 9 times in a row. And the music
isn't interesting enough to pick up the slack.
However, the instrumental sections are probably the best parts
on the album, especially on "Warm and Sunny Days."
No one can say The Dears don't know how to play their instruments.
The problem is that it doesn't necessarily make for good music.
Almost every song attempts to build to a crescendo (or crescendos),
but the end result of the build-up is never satisfying. It's
more like tartar build-up. Or that film on your car windshield
that keeps getting worse every time you try to smear it with
your hand, but you keep smearing it anyway. Tartar + car film
= No Cities Left.
Reviewed by
Joel Oliphint
November 22nd, 2004 |
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