The Liberation of Lisa Germano

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At its heart, Lisa Germano's In the Maybe World is an album rife with optimism. It's also a work that arrives at that optimism via a circuitous journey landmarked by the pain of failed relationships and emotional ambiguities.

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In a voice that rarely rises above a whisper, Germano gently guides the listener through a world that is at once ominous and strangely beautiful, an ambient landscape of almost childlike simplicity. It's a piebald land of innocence marred by the intrusion of mundane realities, and she traverses through it like a weary veteran. "Let the love go/ Let the love be," Germano pointedly pleas in "The Seed," underscoring the prevalent theme of the album--through loss, we grow stronger.

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Whether she's eulogizing her beloved cat ("Golden Cities") or playing both roles in a dysfunctional, but loving relationship (Red Thread"), Germano's trademark whisper is anything but brittle--it is the sound of a razor slicing through virgin linen. Backed by her own barebones instrumentation of piano, violin and guitar, and supplemented by Johnny Mar's haunting guitar phrasings on"Into Oblivion" and "Wire", coupled with Sebastian Steinberg's masterful string bass work on several tracks, In the Maybe World strikes at a visceral level that belies its simplicity.

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Lisa Germano has always put her craft above the demands of the machinery that is the recording industry. That is a trait that is becoming increasingly rare, but is nowhere near extinction. Germano, like Kate Bush and PJ Harvey, isn't remotely concerned about churning out a hit record. Instead, she invites the listener to join her in an ongoing debate she's having with her personal demons. Often as not, she confronts them head-on and wins, however ambiguous the victory may be.

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In the Maybe World, though, illustrates the power of little victories in our daily lives. It's the kind of album that you listen to at night--soft and melodic, with a quiet message of hope for a better tomorrow. "I try to love you when I can/ When it's alright to be who I am", she says on "After Monday." Tuesday will be better, and it's that seemingly bleak optimism that drives this album.

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Lisa Germano raises more questions about life than she answers, and that's what makes her so compelling. That she accomplishes this in an album scarcely thirty minutes long speaks volumes.

Mike Douglas: Gone, But Never Forgotten

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Mike Douglas died this morning, on his 81st birthday.

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While he has been out of the spotlight for several years, Douglas will be remembered for pioneering the afternoon talk show. From 1961 to 1982, The Mike Douglas Show was a daily staple of American pop culture. It's estimated that during that tenure, he did 6000 shows, most of them 90 minutes long, and hosted over 30,000 guests. Among that roster were seven sitting, former or future Presidents and a preschool Tiger Woods, among numerous other celebrities.

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Born Michael Delaney Dowd in Chicago, 11 August 1925, Douglas began his career as an Irish crooner in the 1940's. But as musical and cultural trends moved towards a more youth-oriented market in the fifties, he shifted his attentions to television as a means to keep his career alive. It was here that he found the niche for which he will be most remembered.

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The Mike Douglas Show, however reluctantly, revolutionized daytime television in the early seventies. He was to a largely female afternoon audience what Johnny Carson was to post-primetime viewers. Douglas himself never viewed his series as a talk show, but as a music program with conversations thrown in between tunes. Be that as it may, it was his convivial style of interviewing guests that makes him one of the true greats for any student of pop culture.

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Looking back through the fog of memory, what stands out most significantly is that Douglas never lost his cool. Even when he was dealing with difficult subjects like Jerry Reuben, Yoko Ono and John Lennon, Douglas maintained a happy hour atmosphere in his shows. He was, above all else, an entertainer, and he never let the audience know if he was sweating a bit. It is not stretching a point to say that he laid the groundwork for all that were to follow him.

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Mike Douglas led a good life. Thankfully, he shared it with us.

Is Rhymefest Really the New Face of Rap?

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Che Smith aka Rhymefest emphatically wants to distance himself from gangsta rap and take the genre to a more positive plane. On his debut album Blue Collar, he delivers a set of rhymes that don't stray far from the conventions of current rap, but attempts it from a working class perspective on those themes.

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The inhabitants of Blue Collar are inner city working stiffs, by and large, who punch a clock by day and pick up a forty rather than a gat at the end of the workday. They are the people who live in direct opposition to the gangstas--wannabe and otherwise--that much of rap glamorizes.

'Fest makes this theme blatantly clear in "Dynomite (Going Postal)", a blistering indictment of gangsta trappings bereft of street cred. He's not preachy here--he attacks at gut level, using every profanity at his disposal to drive his point home. Since he is a veteran of the dub wars (allegedly beating Eminem in a duel), this should come as no surprise. The language of the streets is the language in which 'Fest is most well-versed. And as such, some audiences might find much of the lyrical content offensive. Even on "Sister," purportedly sympathizing with female victims of physical abuse, the narrator admits his initial motive to talking to the woman was the possibility of a sexual encounter. It nonetheless becomes a poignant vignette about the perils of the ghetto. While not exactly cocktail conversation, its lyrical tone does ring true on a subliterate level.

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What Blue Collar does bring to the table that's refreshing is a musical backdrop that is neither West Coast nor East Coast, but distinctly Midwestern--"Chi-Coast," maybe. There is an unmistakable Chicago rhythm permeating the entire album, ranging from steel factory beats to smoky blues riffs to back alley shout outs. A lot of this is no doubt due to No-ID's production, but the greater credit has to go to 'Fest--he may be blue collar, but he has the blue collar popped up throughout the album. Whether you agree with his stance is irrelevant--the man raps with conviction. He did, after all, co-write boyhood friend Kanye West's hit "Jesus Walks." Kanye and 'Fest rhyme together here, most notably on the romp "Brand New."

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I'd hesitate to say that Rhymefest puts a new face to rap, though. While he does steer away from the guns and crime themes of gangsta, he falls back on the older themes of clubbin' and sexin', which served as the basis of the current stagnant state of rap. 'Fest has an opportunity here to take rap forward to a more socially aware level. Rap, when done at its best, is street poetry. Let's hope Rhymefest takes advantage of that power, and not become yet another rapper caught in their own myth.

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A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Lies

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Photography is, at its essence, preserving a moment that has never happened before, and never will happen again. This is particularly undeniable in the realm of photojournalism. And that's why Reuters' publication of Adnan Hajj's altered photos of the Israeli-Lebanese conflict are reprehensible.

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One of the photos in question shows smoke rising from Beirut after an Israeli bombing raid. Lots of smoke. The other depicts an Israeli F-16 firing three missiles at an unspecified target. Very dramatic. They're the sort of photographs that rip at the soul. There's just one small problem--they're not exactly real.

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Hajj, for whatever motive, decided his photo of the bombing aftermath lacked the drama he wanted to convey--the reality of that one moment he had captured wasn't cinematic enough. And a mediocre shot of an Israeli plane firing a defensive flare, even shot through a fast telephoto lens, wasn't very provocative, either. He did , therefore, what any mediocre hack photographer would do: he photoshop'd the hell out of them and hoped nobody would notice.

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Reuters, at least their global photo editor, Tom Szlukovenyi, didn't notice. More likely, though, the news agency didn't care. After all, Beirut beneath a blanket of thick, oily black smoke depicts the horrors of war much more dramatically than a poorly composed picture that shows only a single bomb blast on the horizon clearly. Perhaps in their arrogance and rush to beat their competitors in ratings and, by extension, ad dollars, Reuters thought nobody would notice.

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But people did notice. Over the weekend, the Internet, particularly political bloggers, made Abnan Hajj something of a Web celebrity. Google him and you'll find a cornucopia of sources that have posted the before and after renditions of the above described items.

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Reuters unceremoniously pulled all 920 of Hajj's photos, most of which were sports shots, from its files Sunday, excluding them from future sales. Szlukovenyi issued a statement typical of those with their hand caught in the cookie jar, absolving themselves of culpability and reiterating the old "zero tolerance policy" saw.

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There is a larger issue that looms here, though, and it is infinitely more important than any short-sighted, self-serving political agendas, be it from a photographer who may or may not be sympathetic to Hezbollah, or pro-Israeli websites or news agencies slanting stories to either the left or the right. The issue here revolves around trust and responsibility--all else is superfluous.

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It's impossible to not slant the news--to say it's 35 degrees outside is fact--to say it's very cold is slanting that fact. That being said, it's ludicrous to refer to news outlets as "the liberal media." The media is what it is, and it's composed of a multitude of viewpoints, some vehement and some conciliatory, all beholden to who's buttering their bread.

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The Hajj affair goes beyond the pale in its sensationalism of what is already a situation of potentially apocalyptic proportions. In times like these, it is not only incumbent upon journalists to accurately inform the public, it is essential to maintaining the Fourth Estate's credibility. Altered photos do not tell the truth--they only give credence to conspiracy theories.

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A picture is indeed worth a thousand words--or a thousand lies. The realities of war speak eloquently of horror and tragedy without embellishing them through photo manipulation.

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Pure Reason Revolution:

Guerillas of the Surreal

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I don't sleep a lot-- in fact, I average four, maybe five hours a night. Seven hours is sleeping in for me. Don't get me wrong--I would love something beyond a ten minute"power nap" (another one of those pre-fab labels whose meaning completely eludes me), but the constraints of American time-sense--not to mention that pesky 24-hour solar cycle-- make that next to impossible. I'm not whining. I'm just saying.

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There's a plus side though--sleep deprivation, when utilized properly, can be an extremely effective creative tool. Once you've blurred the lines between dream and wakefulness, reality takes on a different hue. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.

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On their debut album, The Dark Third, Pure Reason Revolution nimbly traverses such territories in a work that clearly establishes them as the new prog movement's best and brightest hope. What places this British quintet at the forefront of the neo progs is their uncanny ability to translate seventies progressive rock to a language relevant to the 21st century. They've managed this by drawing on contemporary influences such as Radiohead and Nirvana and tracing them back to what influenced those bands--Yes, Led Zeppelin and, of course, Pink Floyd. The result is an album that both pays homage to those influences, and transcends them.

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While I would hesitate to label The Dark Third a "concept" album, its title alludes to that part of life that is spent in the subliterate world of dream state. As such, it flits between idioms and musical time frames without regard to obvious references. This is most apparent on the almost twelve minute long "The Bright Ambassadors." The title itself being a reference to a line in Pink Floyd's Meddle, the track intros in a Fairport Convention meets Evanescence groove, transmutes into a melodic moment of strings and synths, evolves into a literary refrain reminiscent of William S. Burroughs as translated by Pink Floyd and lopes into a Fleetwood Mac harmony interlude before shredding into a bass and drums- driven climax that echoes Led Zeppelin's Coda days. In lesser hands, the resultant piece would have been chaos, but Pure Reason Revolution pull it all together seamlessly.

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Much of the reason The Dark Third succeeds has to do with the vocal interplay between Jon Courtney and Chloe Alper, who serve as the focal point of the band. They counterpoint each other so effectively that the actual lyrics become secondary to the inherent power of the tune. The tunes, though, ultimately make the album--Andrew Courtney's drums accentuate every phrase and James Dobson's synths, coupled with Jamie Wilcox's guitar riffs, imbue every song with a power that is at once both ethereal and firmly grounded in the elements of rock.

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It's August as I write this, so I think it's safe to start passing out "best of" nominations for 2006. I was skeptical concerning Pure Reason Revolution when I first heard about them, what with all the hype about them being the next Pink Floyd. Jaded critic that I am, I thought I would dismiss them as "Pink Floyd: the next generation." In one way, I was right--they are that. They've picked up the mantle that Syd Barrett absentmindedly tossed aside one day. But they have done more than that--they have picked up where he left off, passed it around to others who shared his vision in one way or another, absorbed their scents and created something familiar yet dangerously new.

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What Pure Reason Revolution has done with The Dark Third is nothing short of revolutionary. By delving into the roots of their roots and updating those roots, they have validated rock and roll in a way not heard of since Green Day's American Idiot.

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The Dark Third is easily the best rock album I've heard this year. And Pure Reason Revolution is far and away the best rock band to emerge in 2006.

When Phish Landed on Coney Island

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On a rainy day in June 2004, the members of Phish got together for a jam session and invited 20,000 of their closest friends to listen. At least, that's the impression one is left with after viewing Phish Live in Brooklyn (or listening to the CD version.) Filmed at Coney Island's Keyspan Park, this release beautifully documents what is ostensibly one of Phish's final performances.

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In a career spanning over twenty years, with virtually no personnel changes, Phish never broke the Top Twenty in record sales, yet enjoyed mega status as a touring band. Their grassroots approach to self-promotion and their interaction with their fanbase led to inevitable comparisons to the Grateful Dead. Indeed, after Jerry Garcia's death in 1995, Phish seemed poised to be the heir apparent to the Grateful Dead's legacy, at least on that level.

Musically, though, the similarities between the two are scant. While both drew on diverse influences, Phish, by and large, leaned more towards an improvisational jazz approach whereas the Grateful Dead took a more folksy route.

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All such comparisons aside, Phish is certainly one of the all-time great jam bands, and indisputably the best to emerge on the national scene in the nineties. Phish Live in Brooklyn proves that in no uncertain terms. Directed by Eli Tishberg, this is concert filmmaking at its best-- a straightforward, but lovingly rendered rendition of the event without the usual interview intercuts and such that distract from the experience. Of course, it doesn't hurt that it rained through most of the concert, providing for some nice special effects.

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Cinematography and the fortunate events of nature do not a concert make, obviously--they can only serve to record the event. Ultimately, it all hinges on the performance. Here, Phish does a remarkable job of engaging their live audience and, by extension, the home viewer like. In a two-set concert that lasts over three hours, the band performs an eclectic selection of songs spanning their two decade career. With Trey Anastosio's loopy guitar style serving as the unifying motif throughout the show, Phish turn twenty-one songs into what amounts to one long, but infinitely satisfying jam.

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This is a concert bereft of histrionics--even the lighting effects by "fifth member" Chris Kuroda are subdued, serving to embellish the music's emotions. While Anastosio's guitar is prominent throughout, the entire band shines as well. Bassist Mike Gordon, with his bobblehead timing, trades licks formidably against the guitar phrasings on "Free." Page McConnel's keyboards accentuate each song with an extra layer of phrasing, and Jon Fishman's percussion unnerringly guides each tune.

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From the opening "A Song I heard the Ocean Sing" to the closing classic "The Divided Sky," Live in Brooklyn is a testament to the power of the jam. If this concert does indeed herald the end of Phish, then they went out with guns blazing to the very last note. On the other hand, it may be that Live in Brooklyn documents the end of one cycle of Phish's career. They've even alluded that a reunion is not out of the question. Either way, it stands on its own as a great live performance. The DVD version is the way to go for home entertainment. For a purely aural experience, or when on the go, the CD shines as well. Either way, Phish Live in Brooklyn is worthy of more than a casual listen.

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How the Queen of Soul and the King of Sax Changed Rock Forever

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It's pretty much a given that you can't really love rock and roll without at least having a fundamental appreciation of soul--the roots of both are inextricably entwined. Still, throughout the 1950's and well into the sixties, the two traversed largely parallel paths. There were the rock charts and there were the R&B charts-- crossover hits were extremely rare on either side.

Blame it on record label marketing, not any kind of veiled racism. Bean counters have never been renowned as visionaries.

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Three nights in March 1971, at Bill Graham's Filmore West, made them open their eyes, though. San Francisco's famed venue played host to Aretha Franklin, backed by King Curtis and the Kingpins for three straight shows (March 5-7). The lines between rock and soul would be forever blurred.

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Two CDs from Rhino, appropriately titled Aretha Live at Filmore West and King Curtis Live at the Filmore West document those events in digitally remastered recordings so crisp the listener is aurally transported to those concerts. This is Aretha at her apex, belting out gospel-infused soul in her inimitable style. This is King Curtis, playing sax and fronting his dream team version of the Kingpins, as if there were no tomorrow.

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Aretha was already acknowledged as the "Queen of Soul", due in no small part to Jerry Wexler's tutelage since signing with Atlantic in 1966. King Curtis had a resume dating back to the fifties, and his sax stylings largely defined the instrument's role in in rock and roll. He was a musician's musician, though, and at that time, not a name generally equated with the rock scene. And while Aretha was an international star, most of the buzz surrounding her was generated from the R&B press.

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So it was with some trepidation that Wexler brought Aretha and King to the Filmore West. By his own account, he wasn't sure how an audience accustomed to acts like the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane would respond to what amounted to an all-out soul revue.

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He needn't have worried.

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Aretha Live at Filmore West hits the ground running with a revved-up performance of "Respect" and Lady Soul's promise to the largely "hippie" audience that they will "enjoy this performance as much as any you have had the occasion to see." She makes good on that guarantee, and then some, with her take on "Love the One You're With," as different from the Steven Stills original as midnight is to dawn. Aretha's greatest strength lies in her ability to completely redefine source material, and nowhere is that more apparent than her renditions of "Eleanor Rigby" and "Bridge Over Troubled Waters." Those two covers define the phrase, "it's not so much what you say as how you say it." And how she says it sends a shiver up the spine and a gut shot to the soul.

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But where Aretha Live at Filmore West shines most brightly is when she unabashedly returns to her gospel/blues roots--and it is here that she ultimately holds the audience captive. "Dr. Feelgood" begins as an earthy, blues-infused tune that stretches into an all-out revival for over four minutes, with the audience caught up in the spirit, "amen-ing" her every utterance. As it segues into "Spirit in the Dark," Aretha holds the crowd utterly under her sway. Like an A.M.E. preacher, she takes utmost advantage of the opportunity, unexpectedly bringing "the righteous reverend" Ray Charles to the stage to reprise the song. A spontaneous jam, the likes of which had never been heard, ensues. The electricity in that performance ranks as one of those "great moments" in the evolution of rock and roll.

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Aretha Live at Filmore West is an indispensable album for anybody remotely interested in the evolution of rock and roll, soul or pop music in general. This edition also includes outtakes and alternative mixes culled from those three nights, not included in previous issues of the album. This isn't just pop music history. It is soul at its very best.

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If Aretha's performances at the Filmore dispelled any doubts that soul could play to rock audiences, then a huge credit is due to her band, led by King Curtis. Besides providing an amazing backing to Aretha's vocals, he and his Kingpins served as her opening act. King Curtis Live at the Filmore West is a testament to the power inherent in unspoken vocabulary of instrumental music.

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Here, he augments the Kingpins with special guests Billy Preston and the legendary Memphis Horns. The resultant album is extraordinary, to put it mildly. Culled from the three nights performances, the tracks are nothing short of exhilarating. King Curtis was the greatest of rock and roll's saxmen, and he aptly demonstrates his talents here. From the classic "Soul Serenade" to his rendition of Procol Harem's "Whiter Shade of Pale," his tenor sax phrasings never falter. Even on "Whole Lotta Lovin" (an obvious choice for the flower child crowd) , his instrument takes on a voice of its own.

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There is an unintentional melancholy to this album. I mentioned at the beginning of this piece that King Curtis played as if there was no tomorrow. Sadly, for him there were very few tomorrows after this performance. King Curtis was stabbed to death five months later. His legend lives on.

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Aretha Live at Filmore West and King Curtis Live at the Filmore West are two albums that beautifully document a time when rock and soul were finally coming to grips that they shared the same lineage. The music that would follow relishes in that new-found identity to this day.

Blues Around the World Holds the Key to Global Peace

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Attempting to uncover that one moment that was the point at which the blues began is akin to defining the origin of the universe--it can't be done. Once you think you've finally nailed the answer, "but where did that come from?" becomes the immediate question, and once that question is answered, another question arises, and so on, until you fall back on faith, or go stark raving mad.

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The blues is one of those great mysteries that simply "always has been." Sure, as a recorded genre, it can be traced back to the 1920's American south, pioneered most notably by Robert Johnson and a few others, but its roots go far deeper than that. The blues is a universal voice that was born at the same time whatever evolved into the human spirit was born--it's an inherent part of our genetic makeup, indifferent to primordial migratory paths and the rise and fall of empires.

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The Putumayo compilation Blues Around The World eloquently illustrates this point in an album that encapsulates the universality of the blues. From Chicago to Zanzibar, the blues imprint has left its mark across the globe, as evidenced in these eleven songs by musicians ranging from Bonnie Raitt to Long-ge. Throughout it all, a sense of spritual triumph and celebration permeates the music, regardless of its origins.

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There are collaborations here that literally span the globe, and if some seem unlikely, they only serve to augment the appeal of the genre. Urban blues legend Taj Mahal teams with the Culture Musical Club of Zanzibar for a sultry, Arabic-infused rendition of the Mississippi-born classic "Catfish Blues." The band Unseen Guest provides a seamless fusion between Western and Eastern musical influences, specifically, Irish and Indian, with the easy, pulsating beat of "Listen My Son." Habib Koite of Mali provides a perfect counterpoint to Bonnie Raitt's slide guitar with his open plucking style.

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It is in the diversity of the individual performers represented here, however, that Blues Around the World shines most brightly. Artists from Brazil (Blues Etilicos) , the Sahara (Amar Sundy), Taiwan (Long-ge) and Spain (Jarabe De Palo) all offer a unique interpretation of what the blues mean to them individually, and by extension, to the global community. More importantly, perhaps, is that in these performances, we are compelled to recognize the unifying threads that bind us together as humans.

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If music is the universal language, then the blues is the dialect most widely spoken. All of the songs here attest to the common hopes and fears, loves and loathings we all share, regardless of the particular locale in which we live. The idiom that is the blues resides deeply in our collective unconsciousness, holding a promise of hope in moments of despair. The blues, at its essence, reminds us that no matter how bad things may be, they can only get better.

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Blues Around theWorld is that rarest of compilation albums-- a collection made all the more relevant by current events. Its message, unintentional though it may be, is we have more in common than we care to admit.

What We Whisper Is What You Should Hear

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Darkly ethereal, What We Whisper, the new release from Jeffrey Luck Lucas, paints an aural landscape littered with dashed dreams and bleak futures, populated with jaded protagonists who wear their world weariness like a favorite jacket--tattered memories they can't throw away no matter how much they'd like to. The pain of them is perversely comforting. "Tell me why you carry your tears like a melody," Lucas plaintively asks in "The Pills," knowing the answer is in fact, the question.

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The questions Lucas poses throughout What We Whisper have at their root the eternal conflict of humaniity's place in a world much larger than itself, and he grapples with them in a voice soaked in urban angst. This is not an album of anthemic platitudes--it's more akin to Tom Waits as channeled through Leonard Cohen. As such, it beckons the listener into an intricate web of choices that may have gone wrong but have nonetheless left the protagonist with no regrets. In Lucas's world, there are no necessarily good or bad things that happen, only experiences.

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All of this is played against a backdrop of not surprisingly minor chords reminiscent of a modern noir soundtrack. It's all delicately nuanced, accentuated by the occasional cello and haunting background vocals of Wendy Allen. Desmond Shea's production complements the instrumentation perfectly, endowing it with an aura that is at once otherwordly yet disturbingly familiar. And throughout it all, there is that voice-- soaked in whiskey and weary with the weight of memories, tortured yet at peace, compelling the listener to hear these tales.

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What We Whisper is a deceptively subtle work that requires the listener to actually listen. What Jeffrey Lee Lucas has done here has given us a tour of love and life as seen from fog-shrouded

alleys and dusty border towns that only exist in our darker dreams. It's a tour that's best appreciated at night, when one can feel the pangs of retrospection.

Midlake revisits Seventies Art Rock--

It's A Largely Pointless Trip

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I was a high school freshman when the seventies dawned, and change was in the air. I'm not talking about sociopolitical upheaval here--I'm talking what really matters in our daily life--namely, rock and roll.

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FM radio was just beginning to subvert the AM top forty format with a curious genre called "album rock." For the first time, we could sample "deep cuts" from hit albums with our own ears, rather than relying on reviews from Rolling Stone, Village Voice and Crawdaddy, before shelling out our hard-earned coke bottle money on the latest Monkees release. We were free at last.

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Or so we thought.

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Every revolution has its downside, and the repercussions of the FM revolution was that it gave credence to that most horrid of all mutants, art rock. In retrospect, we can lay the blame squarely on the scrawny shoulders of Pete Townsend and the Who's Tommy, the world's first (shudder) rock opera. And while Tommy was a noble experiment, it had the unintended effect of empowering every arthead in every college town in America (and Europe, I suppose) with the idea that Tolkien-inspired bad poetry and music theory classes could elevate their garage bands to art.

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The sleepy little college town of Denton, Texas was at that time to fusion jazz what Austin would become to outlaw C&W. It was a well-deserved reputation-- North Texas State University's

One O'Clock Lab Band even won a grammy for its jazz endeavors. The sad offshoot of that was that it also attracted every hippie who had ever strummed a guitar, blew a few notes into a recorder or read a few passages from Gravity's Rainbow. For a Texas hippie, Denton was Utopia.

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Fast forward three some-odd decades later. North Texas State is now the University of North Texas, and Denton is still a college town forty miles north of Dallas, and still is a haven for collegiates who consider their every breath a whiff of "art." Occasionally, something relevant emerges from this self-absorbed community. Midlake's sophomore effort, The Trials of Van Occupanther, however, is not such an item.

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Midlake's full-length debut, Bamnan and Silvercork, was a bit of a cult hit and earned them a European tour. That's really not surprising, given its ennui-laced eighties pop feel, even less surprising, given they were signed to Cocteau Twins alumnus Simon Raymonde's Bella Union label. Still, it was an admirable first effort. Sheesh, even Jason Lee (My Name Is Earl) jumped on the Midlake bandwagon.

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On The Trials of Van Occupanther, Midlake eschews synths in favor of an accoustic sound that harkens back to the pseudo-medieval strains of early seventies art rock. Think Jethro Tull's Minstrel in the Gallery meets Moody Blues' Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. And then recall how overblown the messages those albums tried to convey seem in retrospect.

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Ostensibly, The Trials of Van Occupanther chronicles a man's trek on a path of self discovery, which somehow parallels some sort of universal truth about mankind--at least, that's what I think it ostensibly does. The problem is, the lyrics are so shrouded in "meaning" they don't ever tell the story. There's a pacifist theme here, a quest for everlasting love there and a longing for a simpler lifestyle over there. In their quest to create art, Midlake neglected to tell their story compellingly.

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Musically, however, Midlake succeeds in creating a soundtrack for this mess of a tale. The band is undeniably tight, albeit a bit reliant on music school theory. It's to their credit that Midlake faithfully recreated that overwraught, hipper-than-thou fairy-tale world of early seventies art rock. It's also to their detriment.

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The Trials of Van Occupanther is a living example of "second album syndrome"--a valiant effort, but a little too much of an effort. I'm not giving up on them--yet. Midlake is a band to watch, regardless of this effort.