The wait? It was killing me.
Laura Stevenson sings like she’s exorcising demons.
It’s an inexplicable fact that can’t be ignored: she can have all the backing band she wants, but me? I’m showing up for that voice. That incredible, soaring, searing, voice, that voice that can do anything it’s told.
On their first full-length record Stevenson truly becomes one iwth her backing band The Cans, and long-time listeners and new fans alike reap some incredible benefits from that meeting of the minds. Fans of their previous releases get eased into what is ultimately and undoubtedly one of the top records of 2011. The opening track, “Halloweens Pt. 1 and 2″ came across as painfully lo-fi on the Bomb The Music Industry split 7″ that came out last year. Like all the songs on Sit Resist it has a comparatively glossy studio sheen that is enhanced by an impeccable mix and mastering. Where the lows on the 7″ were so low as to require one to crank the volume only to have the speakers burst when the full band comes in on the back half. The new cut has a bit of a smoother transition, not entirely sacrificing dynamics but making it a lot easier to listen to.
Now, nitpicking aside, let’s talk about the songs.
I wrote rather enthusiastically about “Master of Art” and it’s wily “Be My Baby”-aping opening drum beat a couple months ago, but it’s remarkable how stirring that song remains after a LOT of repeated listens. The best way to describe the multi-tracked vocals on the song’s back end might be to quote the immortal words of Garth Algar: they wail.
The song also represents a few thematic and lyrical examples that carry themselves all the way through the record. One of the last phrases in the song is, “The wait is just a little longer,” a word and concept that comes back in spades on two tracks at the album’s end (companion pieces “The Wait” and “The Weight”). Time appears to be something that weighs heavily on Stevenson, showcased in the next song “Caretaker” as well, in which she implores herself to write down her childhood memories before leaving the home she grew up in behind for good. The future looks bleak in “The Healthy One” as well; while it’s one of the jauntiest numbers (thanks to playful accordion and xylophone) it’s also an incredibly bleak tale of an entire family being decimated by disease, leaving just one little child behind to spend the rest of their life alone.
On the other hand is “Red Clay Roots,” a song that transcends time itself. Stevenson explained in a recent interview with AMP magazine.
I wrote that song after I found my grandma’s unfinished manuscripts. She was writing her memoirs before she died and she told me she was going to name it “Red Clay Roots” when she was finished, but she never did finish it. It’s about her growing up in Greenville, South Carolina. Her mother was a bottle smasher during the temperance movement, and her father and three brothers all drank themselves to death, but she pulled herself out and moved to New York to sing with Benny Goodman. I wrote the song to sort of celebrate her story because she didn’t live long enough to tell it herself.
The song is an eery, tin can-sounding recording that features a dusty distortion on a spare acoustic guitar part and several vocal tracks. The layered singing and humming that make up the bulk of the track create an incredibly subtle but moving effect. The lyrics hew closely to the description you see above, creating a whole package that would be perfectly comfortable on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack.
For me the album culminates with the final three songs. “The Wait” is the perfect embodiment of how timely yet out-of-their-time Stevenson and the Cans are. It’s pretty rare that you hear someone who is only 27 sing about their “life’s work” and “waiting for a train to come” and actually BELIEVE it. The band builds to it’s most raucous moment yet, electric guitar, trumpet, and drums all chiming in a melodically cacophonous coda that wanes into “The Weight.” Its finger-picked acoustic guitar and strings provide a temperate, gentle denoument to that moment of passion and fury while the repeated lyrics and withering tone of Stevenson’s voice emphasize the point: the wait is killing her.
Even more disarming is the record closer, “I See Dark,” a track that re-establishes the band’s penchant for experimenting within a familiar sound (something Stevenson did in spades on her first 8-song album, A Record). While it opens with some waltzing accordion, there are a few breaks of discordant distortion that might sound more at home on an Explosions In The Sky record. It works its way out with singing so pained and vulnerable it has to be genuine; Stevenson has revealed in some interviews that when the band raised the idea of changing the song from its recorded form she broke down in tears. She says it’s the most personal song she’s ever written.
The songs on Sit Resist aren’t upbeat summer jams. Stevenson writes from an extremely personal place and more often than not the subject matter, if not the backing music, is undeniably bleak. But for my money you won’t hear another record like this all year. It’s modern but respective of musical history, it’s powerful without resorting to power chords and screaming, it’s personal without being overly confessional. There isn’t a bad song on here and there isn’t a song you won’t find engaging on some level. As I said before, Stevenson is singing like she’s exorcising demons. I wouldn’t wish ill on anyone else but if that’s what it takes for her to keep writing songs like this then I hope she never finds salvation.
Laura Stevenson & the Cans - The Healthy One: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Laura Stevenson & the Cans - The Wait: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadIf you’re quick you can download Sit Resist for free from the LS&TC tumblr. Albums can be bought physically from that site and the album is on iTunes too.
