![]() ![]() In any event, there are still good songs with quotable lines here, thankfully, and the tunes throughout are solid. But an album that finds Berman in a more focused mode lyrically, writing lines that seem to straighten out some of his bent lyrical aesthetic, would do well to come with a more welcoming sound. I shouldn't dwell on the production, since this band started out as the lo-ist of the lo-fi, recording white noise-packed songs on answering machines- and besides, you listen to Silver Jews for words. There were some weird choices made in the studio. Berman's bassist and vocalist wife Cassie is, as she was on Tanglewood Numbers, far too high in the mix. Busy Nashville producer Mark Nevers handled a chunk of the recording and all the mixing, and the warmth he's been known to give albums by Lambchop, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, and the Clientele is missing here. Something about the sound makes him sound a bit uneasy, stiff, and a touch less confident. It doesn't help that the production is oddly harsh and distant-sounding where Berman sounds best clear and uncluttered, so that it seems like he's engaging you in conversation, on this record his voice has a weirdly persistent metallic reverb clinging to it, like he's broadcasting from inside a tin can and you're straining to connect with him. You feel like you just tripped and fell awkwardly into the album. And this problem is there from the beginning, the opening, where SJ have always killed: Where Tanglewood Numbers grabbed us by the throat with "Punks in the Beerlight" and The Natural Bridge turned a chair around and sat us down to explain "How to Rent a Room", Lookout Mountain opens with the plodding and dull "What Is Not But Could Be If". There are no instant entries to the SJ canon, nothing here that knocks you on your ass, not a single "How did he write that?" moment. Part of it could be the lack of knockout songs. And so while Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, the first Silver Jews album in almost three years, has the usual small handful of eh-to-just-OK tracks, it also feels different from prior Silver Jews albums in a way that's hard to put a finger on. Two or three or four duff tracks on one record is nothing to get worked up about, and they may even add to the ramshackle charm. The nature of Silver Jews allows for inconsistent albums, even though the records appear infrequently. I have a feeling I'm not alone when I say that on every SJ record- save American Water, almost- I still skip around a bit. ![]() Perfection being what it is for Silver Jews, and Berman being so comfortable with that notion, it's easy for fans to gloss over the rough patches. ![]()
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