Anyone else tired of the acoustic balladeer? The singer-songwriter with the sensitive side? Christ, haven’t we reached critical mass on these guys with an acoustic guitar and broken-hearted voice? Who’s this Elvis Perkins, and why should I be bothered?
Perkins’ debut Ash Wednesday doesn’t start out so promising, and the first two minutes of the opening track ‘While You Were Sleeping’ are indistinguishable from the work of the archetypal and nameless troubadour, but…
… the pedantry doesn’t last, thankfully. A shaky voice and acoustic guitar last for one verse and chorus cycle, but you’ll want to wait before you reach for your Zoloft; each verse picks up a new instrument before the song emerges into a lively second-half. The album follows in suit.
Aren’t we all tired of decent lyricists who feel they’re so misunderstood that they can’t be bothered to get a decent band behind them, let alone a paying audience? Not so w/ Perkins – layers of instruments don’t scumble the songs, but instill them with liveliness and joviality that is the record’s greatest strength. Tracks 2 and 3, ‘All The Night Without Love’ and ‘May Day!’ maintain the acceleration, and the latter is a romp with the energy of a roomful of drunks that don’t want to go home, and have one last chance to raise a glass before calling it a night.
Ash Wednesday has at least five exceptional cuts, all of which involve Perkins’ band (known as Elvis Perkins in Dearland), but solo numbers like ‘It’s Only Me’ and ‘It’s a Sad World After All’ do little to showcase Perkins talent, or to make much of an impression. The best cuts are dressed up with help from his band, and the album is buoyed by tracks like ‘May Day!’, ‘Moon Woman II’ and ‘Emile’s Vietnam in the Sky’ (suggestive of a Desire-era Dylan), which are far more fully realized compositions than the guitar-and-voice moments.
Perkins doesn’t cover much stylistic ground – and that’s fine - but he does pepper his songs with little surprises like a cornet riff that appears sporadically in ‘Sleep Sandwich’. Bits like that and the well-placed string section are the moments with the capacity for eliciting different reactions not only to each song, 
but also to the various parts within each.
‘Sleep Sandwich’ is also the highlight of the album, the payoff. The strings that have teased us finally gratify as the chorus repeats and ends at a state of ecstasy that is possible only because Perkins had heretofore refused put all of his cards on the table. There is enough listenable material in the first nine tracks to keep us listening, but he’s really been leading us on to the exultant reward in track 10.
It takes something special to set apart in the world saturated by singer-songwriters. It’s a very specific and contrived idiom for a musician – minimalist, literate, emotional and rootsy, and any deviation has to be w/in that small window. It takes a lot of nuance and subtlety to avoid scaring the folkies out of their torpor, yet having separation from the next guy with a guitar, a microphone and a story. Even when the local open-mic night at the Inner Town Pub leaves you feeling hopeless about the future of our generation’s songwriters, along comes someone like Elvis Perkins to inject some life into what would be a stale genre without contributors like him. I guess that’s why we’re not running out to buy music made by calculators and cash registers right now.
3 Comments »
this album is one of my favourites of the year so far. and in a year that has offered up a bunch of really phenomenal releases already, that’s high praise indeed.
good review, scott. i love how you didnt mention his parents dying and the 911 thing and stuck to the music. however, you got it wrong on one point…the first song “while you were sleeping” is one of the most exceptionally organic pieces of music i have heard recently. it’s like it was found out under a tree by a waterfall being chirped by nightingales, not painstakingly written by a mere human like elvis perkins. or something.
also, “emile’s” is a waltz. and has an accordian. <3
Thanks Sam, may I recommend “May Day!”, “Emile’s…” or the songs on his band’s myspace page.
Joie, your heart rending description of ‘While You Were Sleeping’ is hard to dispute, and maybe I’d have heard the same if I weren’t looking hard for evidence of wimpiness. I suppose its easy to confuse nightingales for wimps when you’re looking for one or the other.
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Comment by Sam E. — February 27, 2007 @ 9:23 am
Maybe you’re not running out to buy music made by calculators and cash registers. *hugs the machines!*
You do make this record sound interesting though. I might have to find a track or two and give it a listen.