CD Review

Guys, maybe you've been here before. You spot a gal from across a crowded room. You find her intriguing though maybe not quite your type. You almost pass her by. Then you steal another look, one that is returned boldly in the style of "You. Come. Talk to me. I have things to tell you." So you walk over. You sit. She speaks. You listen.

Thus began my unexpected relationship with a young new band with serious expressions on their faces, stern gazes in their eyes, and some cool songs in their hearts.

The band is the Darktown Saints, out of Michigan, perhaps from some town as shadowy and tempting as their collective aura. This energy is polished on their sepia-toned album cover to a smooth, silky finish, an enigmatic sheen that bleeds smoothly into their not quite classifiable pop-rock genre. The album is "This." The tapping tie here is Aaron Wolf, who with three colleagues has produced a refreshing album that's a Stick album without really being a Stick album.

Stickists, by now ensconced in instrumental obscurity, are known to ponder the elusive assimilation of the Stick into mainstream settings: When will the Stick be as recognizable as the guitar? When will people stop asking, "What is that thing?" If ever that day comes in our lifetime, the Darktown Saints have brought it one record closer. This is not an album about the Stick. It's an album of songs and vision, and the Stick plays a perfectly assimilated role.

After an introductory sonic collage foreshadowing tunes to come, the impressively produced record rolls out three jumpy pop-rock tunes. It then veers into deeper strains of four-on-the-floor proggish alternative with echoes of early U2, new Devin Townsend, Enchant, and numerous other influences. Harmonic structures range from modal to chromatic triadic (a la Bach, Bacharach, Beatles) to foggier Sting- and Levin-like inversions with interesting chordal extensions in the bass lines.

Especially interesting to us alternative-axe-wielding musicos would be the five-piece orchestration: voice, drums, piano, Stick, and ... uh ... what's that last one? It's Viper violin, which on casual spin you might mistake for a crunching, wailing guitar. Jay Golden whips fiddle, fuzz, and fingerplay into some of the most interesting sounds since Jean-Luc Ponty delivered his cosmic messages to 1970s fusion.

The drums range from hi-hat subtle to tom-tom solid, the piano from warm to whumping. Yet it's the rumbling undercurrent of supporting-role Stick and the out-front flash of the Viper giving this record its mysterious allure.

The favorite tapping track, and a compositional highlight, is "Last Temptation," with its irresistibly face-twisting bass grooves, the kind that make you pull hands to chest to play air Stick like a teenager before a full-length mirror. Also Stickilicious are the funky groove on the interludes of "Changed" and the nasally PASV-4 showcase "Borrowed Time."

More of a broad thematic work than a finely focused concept album, "This" is a thoughtful tour through the universal grounds of human existence: frustration, longing, faith, determination, hope. The band defines its name as "those who attempt to bring compassion to a world full of fear and hatred."

The music's influences must be broad. I hear everything from the Rembrandts to Queen to Kansas to Scott Joplin to the Beatles to Booth and the Bad Angel to the jangly ostinatoism of the Cocteau Twins. Yet the final amalgam is as tight and composite as an old 10-string polycarb. The lyrics range from catchy and familiar to fresh and insightful. The vocals, mixed about half a notch lower than you might expect, are delivered with consistent earnestness and passion in dedication to a missed younger brother who left this world much too soon.

If you think you're too cultured for driving rock or too sophisticated for the wisdom of articulate young men, take another look across the crowded room before you pass up the Darktown Saints. The favorite Stick grooves are worth the modest admission price of $10, and the Viper's bite will have you reaching for the volume knob rather than an antidote.

Check out this CD at darktownsaints.com

John
johnedmonds.net