WATERS – Out In The Light
City Slang
Gotta confess, Port O’Brien passed me by, but some folks loved ’em and so this debut by their former frontman Van Pierzalowski is preceded by mild tremors of anticipation. Recorded in Texas, but backed by a bunch of Oslo musicians he picked up during the traumatic PO’B break-up period, it fairly bursts out of the traps with the fuzzy, lo-fi grunge-pop of ‘For The One’, a perfect balance of howling distortion and plaintive melody that rattles and squeals most appealingly in the manner of those first two Sparklehorse albums.
‘O Holy Break of Day’ slows things down to a classically American stumblebum gait, but still ravaged by feedback, and even a straightforward acoustic ballad like ‘Ones You Had Before’ is saved by Pierzalowski’s raspy, Conor Oberst-like vocals and sense of musical economy; indeed, the whole album is barely 37 minutes long. But it’s this ear for a catchy hook, along with a tendency towards sentimental nostalgia in the lyrics, which ironically threatens to undermine the whole project. If ‘Back to You’ makes the notion of a grunge Tom Petty sound absolutely brilliant, then by ‘Abridge My Love’ the AOR leanings are beginning to grate, and ‘Take Me Out To The Coast’, with its singalong chorus, culminates in a big finish even The Hold Steady would reject as being too cheesy.
Closer ‘Mickey Mantle’ evokes a lo-fi Bryan Adams, albeit without being anywhere near as dreadful as such a thing should be. Pierzalowski could probably clean up his sound and make a convincing stab at Kings of Leon -tyle stadium ubiquity, but the joy of this album is in the dirt and grime clinging to the classic structures beneath, like a rusting ’57 Ford Thunderbird in a junkyard dream. Ben Graham
