ONE WE MISSED: Devotchka: This Night Falls Forever (Concord/Southbound)

 |   |  1 min read

Empty Vessels
ONE WE MISSED: Devotchka: This Night Falls Forever (Concord/Southbound)

“Genre-defying” music is so familiar these days that even though it can mean anything it almost acts as genre in itself – but like “indie”, “world music” and "post-rock” it is just about as meaningless.

This multi-instrumental American four-piece helmed by Nick Urata certainly cross easily between styles – ballet music, “rock” albums, scores for TV and films – and are perhaps best known for their soundtrack to Little Miss Sunshine (or Paddington apparently, if you have kids).

But closer reference points might be Arcade Fire, early Beirut and some of the left-field music which David Byrne has explored.

Here – aside from the glorious and sometimes sweeping arrangements for orchestra instruments alongside the band on violin, accordion, theremin, tuba and keyboards– the focus comes back onto Urata's swooning and lush vocals and his lyrics which speak of heightened emotions and romance, of a looking back to when the protagonists were finding themselves (“somewhere back in your memory there's a younger, prettier version of me” on Love Letters).

Songs like Love Letters – an orchestrated Springsteen-like sweep of emotion and words – the pop-rock opener Straight Shot (“I can draw a straight line through my mind, right back to the good times”) and the dreamy ballad Done With Those Days (“there's a storm a'comin' . . . heading straight to the centre of this town”) are freighted with metaphors and images wrapped up in arrangements which are supportive and subtle or work in grand gestures with equal success.

At one level this is a kind of art music-gone-rock and reflects Urata's need – after all those diversions – to get back to singing great songs which are reflective but also imbued with an optimism that whatever has happened (“we're too young to die, too gorgeous and way to high, don't dwell on the tragic” on Empty Vessels” things work out.

Even if it can be hard: “I got nothing left to give, just love all the day long” he sings on the dramatic closer Second Chance.

This wonder-filled album sounds like it has come from a black'n'white Fifties melodrama with lavish orchestration and ballads into our world via the best musicals, rock balladeers, Scott Walker before the art music set in, and a melting pot of bands like Arcade Fire and the Doves.

But it always sounds like Devotchka.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Django Bates: Saluting Sgt Pepper (Edition)

Django Bates: Saluting Sgt Pepper (Edition)

Although you couldn't fault the timing of this album by British keyboard player/conductor/arranger Bates and the Frankfurt Radio Big Band, the result is somewhat less engaging. The 50th... > Read more

Whirimako Black: Soul Sessions (Mai)

Whirimako Black: Soul Sessions (Mai)

Black's two previous te reo album - Tangihanu (2004) and Te Kura Huna (2005) - were compellingly beautiful and weaved between soul balladry and slightly esoteric jazz, but never lost sight of the... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

Rarotonga, Cook Islands: Clocking Off

Rarotonga, Cook Islands: Clocking Off

At 3.20 in the afternoon the clock on the bus taking us from the airport to the hotel reads 9.07. This could be an early and welcome sign that things here in the Cook Islands -- as in most... > Read more

THE BEATLES: HEAR AND NOW; LIVE IN THE STUDIO 24/1/69 (2018): Wired for the sounds of silence

THE BEATLES: HEAR AND NOW; LIVE IN THE STUDIO 24/1/69 (2018): Wired for the sounds of silence

Just as Beatle fans are coming to financial terms with the magisterial expanded reissue of The White Album – seven discs, a book and photos in the Deluxe Edition -- comes news from Apple... > Read more