| A Voice Cries in the Wilderness: Prepare the Way of the Plains |
| By Junior Noboa | |
| Monday, 04 June 2007 | |
The Plains - The Boy in the MansuitIt’s difficult to pigeonhole Seattle band The Plains. Since their 2002 debut, On Earth as It Is in Heaven, they’ve mostly been slapped with the “alt-country” tag. On their long awaited and admirable follow-up, The Boy in the Mansuit, they’re out to illustrate that much more rages beneath the surface of that hopeless moniker. Sure there are a few moonlight cotillion ballads, like “You Never Let Me Believe” and “Pasts Like Circles,” some gorgeous pedal steel provided by Garth Highsmith (Chuckanut Drive ) and moments of angelic, lilting lead and backing vocals. But the mood here is as easily suited to treading an ally of urban decay as wandering a country road at dusk. Either one works; by dawn you still end up shaking your fist at the moon, the Marathon sign and the girl who trashed your heart. The band has grown considerably from that first foray. They’ve abandoned the wide-open safety of the ground, so to speak, diving straight into the heart of a Kansas thunderstorm. Singer-songwriter Aaron Semer, who toiled as a virtual one-man-band on the debut, affords greater creative latitude to the talented Jon Killian on drums (Calmer Than You Are) and the stalwart yeoman Josh Atkins on bass. The results are impressive - the band is tighter and more focused in some areas, appropriately loose and trusting in others, the kind of reliance and confidence in each other that most bands only dream of. It’s a testament to the band that some of the rawer, less structured material still sounds so tight. I’m guessing the absence of structure in some of the songs is intentional. The end result is a collection of songs that soar and weave right into one another. The center of the album, including “Reinvention Song” and “Silverlake” straight on through to the closer, “Pasts Like Circles,” is simply spine tingling. Semer, who unabashedly burns offerings at musical altars of everyone from Harry Nillson to Missy Elliot to Cinderella, is quickly defining his own sound as a guitarist and voice as a songwriter. All those varied influences are here, culminating in anthemic post-punk power pop with some of the best open-ended, reverb-drenched buttrock solos this side of Thurston Moore or Bends-era Johnny Greenwood. Semer’s vocals, more textured and showcasing greater range, carry an infectious twang and honest delivery that’s undeniably Midwestern and so elusive to many other singers. As in Jeff Tweedy’s or Tom Petty’s best moments, you can’t help but believe what the guy is saying. The songs themselves are driven by a need to fill the wide open void of self-doubt with something…anything. Semer often puts his eye squarely on Americana, parsing the world through a cracked Mellencamp lens with the passion and inventiveness of Jeff Mangum. There are some jabs at religiosity and enough agnostic lyrical undertones to conjure up questions about Semer’s personal faith, but nothing is overtly preachy. Religious and romantic idealism isn’t merely bruised from experience so much as it is pummeled into a new perspective. There are no answers or life altering promises at stake here, but the exploration is infinitely more gratifying. – (8/10)  (0) Comments |
| « Prev | Next » |
|---|
