CD's I listened to this week.

Chris Walla- Field Manual

Walla's solo debut Field Manual has a sound reminiscent of a Death Cab pre that episode of the OC, albeit after recieving a considerable amount of spit 'n' polish in the production department. Tracks like The Score demonstrate a more guitar orientated spin on a sound that fans will already be familiar with. Call it a meshing of Death Cab's career up to this point, with guitar based rock on one side, and it's more recent pop values on the other.
Field Manual has all the trademarks of a Chris Walla produced record. It's smothered in that slick yet baroque feel that was so integral to albums that Walla created for other bands, such as the Decemberist's The Crane Wife, a CD that was defined just as much by his twiddling behind the knobs (minds out of the gutter please) as it was by Colin Meloy and company.
Whilst Crane Wife featured tracks recording the lamentations of Russian scientists during the siege of Stalingrad, Field Manual turns to more traditional songwriting. Walla is the master at crafting pop-rock music - and in that sense Field Manual is just like a Death Cab record- with sing song choruses and clean melodies.
As the style seems to be today, a solo indie record has to involve some kind of discourse towards the Bush Administration*. Of course politics is all down to personal opinion, but his vague and mostly uninspired political lamentations can be hard to hear through his habit of over enunciating vowels. Perhaps a trick perhaps learned off Mr Gibbard, it works best in the Hurricane Katrina inspired Everybody needs a Home, which, political differences aside, still wrangles it's way into the albums highlights.

A similar case can be made for A Bird is a Song, a concept seemingly doomed to failure as it is self explanatory. Despite every conceivable ounce of common sense saying otherwise, it somehow works, but the final refrain of 'Keep you feathers clean and dry' sounds more like a PSA for birds than part of a cohesive song.
Although it's pretty much is exactly you'd expect if someone told you 'The Guitarist from Death Cab made a CD'. It's still enjoyable, but better to be enjoyed as a precursor for Death Cab's soon to be released Stairs.





* I swear to god, in 2009 Saddle Creek is going to have to shorten every release by at least three tracks.



Jack Johnson: Sleep through the static



Sleep Through the Static is the soundtrack for Jack Johnson's graduation from Barre-chord obsessed surfer to Singer-Songwriter. Sure, the nursery rhyme esque lyrics remain, but he , like everyone else, seems to have grown sick of his sound. It's hardly a transformation of Dylan esque proportions, but multi-instrumentation (especially electric) is the order of the day. So it seems is multi-inspiration, with vague (and mainly average) impersonations of John Mayer (Sleep through the Static), James Taylor (Enemy) and even something resembling a non-whispering Iron and Wine (Adrift). Johnson still has trouble with trying to get across exactly what he means, often stumbling over his own tongue to get out an odd turn of phrase. Even the worst tracks are strength by the addition of a second guitar, giving them more depth, a bonus, given Johnson's typically untextured back catalogue.






Gram Parsons:

Damnit.
If I could make music then it would sound like this.