All these lists… maybe I’ll indulge in one shortly. I have picked my annual favorites, and have formed opinions on them that everyone needs to know, but I’ve just been introduced to Reindeer Section, and Son of Evil Reindeer is, at the tail end of 2006, my favorite album right now. The lists can wait.

There’s no sense in listing the cast and crew of this Scot-pop SuperGroup - it rivals most marching bands by size. The short list includes members of Belle and Sebastian, Arab Strap, Mogwai and Teenage Fanclub, all joining Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody to become Reindeer Section, a shockingly subdued and linear sound experiment.

The band started in late 2001 (the mythology surrounding an alcohol-fueled recruiting session at a Lou Barlow show is for another story), and released their debut Ya’ll Get Scared now, Ya Hear! in October of that year. More introspective and melancholy than the 2003 follow-up Son of Evil Reindeer, Ya’ll Get Scared was lazy lightning in a bottle. That they came back together for the brighter and more ambitious Son, and made an even better album is extraordinary. That there has been no Round 3 is too bad, but sometimes best to leave well enough alone.

It’s easy to imagine these Glaswegian hipsters and honorary Scots sitting in a dark room in early 2002, wondering how to brighten the mood of the next Reindeer album. A few ideas and pints make their rounds before someone suggests that adding more members is the ticket.

“Wha’ faye? Already 15 oaf us, likesay,” is the knee-jerk reaction, but they eventually agree that 12 is the perfect number needed to fill the personnel gap, and a true rarity is born - a drunken notion that sounds as good as it did when the idea was hatched.

Consider how many times has an enthusiastic idea concocted over heavy drinking turned out anything constructive. At best, it may be decided to make the next party bigger, or to invite more girls, but all that, “Dude, we should start a band…,” shit usually nets zero. The very idea – assembling the best of Scot(esque)-pop – should have resulted in something disastrous, let alone throwing another dozen minds at the project for Round Two. Part of enjoying this album is considering what a mess it could have been, and for that Lightbody deserves praise for his skills as songwriter and manager.

Emotional music runs the risk of leaning too far towards the glum or exuberant, or even worse sitting in an ambivalent inactivity. Neither too sad nor too happy, Son has the unique ability to put you into a morose funk or get you dancing in your living room, depending on which side you want to take.

Track 1 off of Son, ‘The Grand Parade’, is the kind of opener that makes you wonder if the rest of the album is going to be a let down after such an excellent warmer-upper. It is in some ways, because the band works so hard at avoiding both gloom and bliss that it forges a number of forgettable songs. Still, nothing is saliently wrong with any of the album’s 12 tracks, and by the end, even the unmemorable ones like ‘Your Sweet Voice’ and ‘Cold Water’ (which is not a Tom Waits cover) have given the disc important dimension. The disarming opener enters on Lightbody’s 12” voice and almost inaudible guitar before it bursts into to an efficacious horn and piano chorus, on which many of the remaining 26 characters lend their voices and instruments to the mix. The band is holding back on the reins here and throughout the album, which only makes you want more.

Take track 3, ‘Strike Me Down’ - the ‘bop ba-ba, bop, bop, ba-ba,’ sing-along chorus is contrary to the song’s subject (a relationship gone wrong), but it’s somehow appropriate. There is plenty of melancholia to go around and make perfect a cloudy day, but, like its predecessor, Son of Evil Reindeer leaves you unexpectedly elated at its conclusion. There is also plenty of gratuitous ear-to-ear beaming, like the album’s big single ‘You Are My Joy’, which is as blissful as the title suggests, though it tends not to be the content but the skill and restraint in each song that makes you glad.

The Lou Barlow influence is evident in many places, like the line, “I will beat your love out of my chest,” but Barlow isn’t the only person to write in dire and exaggerated terms. It could also be that I’m searching everywhere for more Barlow-isms than is warranted now that I know that Lou Barlow is indirectly responsible for this band’s conception.

Ya’ll Get Scared is improving with age, but Son is likeable from the start and still hasn’t faded. Maybe I need to listen to it all winter in the same way I spent Jan-March ’04 with the Scotland Yard Gospel Choir on repeat… I only hope I feel better about Reindeer in three years than I do SYGC.

4 Comments »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment