"Singer-songwriter Cass McCombs named his fifth album WIT'S END, not WITS' END. The distinction is slight, but telling. Because "wits" usually refers to an overall sense of sanity while "wit" is more commonly associated with one's cleverness or humor. And this record does not mark the end of McCombs' good judgment. Quite the contrary. However, it is not funny or quick or especially nimble-minded. Over the course of his previous four albums, McCombs fashioned himself an enigmatic vagabond in the classic Dylan mold, yet it wasn't until 2009's Catacombs that his enigma started to feel more like a complement than a crutch. While he may have let his wit get the better of him before through knowingly obtuse lyrics and showy arrangements, WIT'S END fittingly leaves those days behind. This is a gorgeous album of despair, the most believable evidence yet that McCombs is living up to his own legend.
Catacombs had McCombs stripping away the instrumentation he had built up around his songs, ending with a bare naturalism that suited him well. And WIT'S END goes even further, its empty spaces and deliberate tempos matching the album's immense loneliness. To get an idea of how desolate, exactly, consider that opening track "County Line"-- an inching ballad about severe unrequited love with its own frighteningly real, syringe-filled junkie video-- is the jauntiest thing here. Catacombs highlight "You Saved My Life" saw McCombs voicing startling sincere and direct affection; if someone played it at a wedding, grandparents might not blink. The direness of WIT'S END suggests the California-born singer may need some more saving; if someone played these songs at a funeral, sons and daughters would bow their heads solemnly.
So yeah, this record is a downer. But there's rare beauty in such darkness, too-- just look at forebears like Leonard Cohen, Elliott Smith, and Nick Drake. Or even Edgar Allan Poe. Because, along with its mopiness, WIT'S END is creepy as hell. Its gothic eeriness embodies not Poe's famous tales as much as his more ethereal and lovelorn poems. In the author's 1827 verse "Spirits of the Dead", he characterizes the titular ghosts as comforting-- "a mystery of mysteries!" And that same infatuation with wispy denouements is all over WIT'S END, but much like Poe's spirits, McCombs' songs bring life to their withering characters over and over again.
Take the seven-and-a-half-minute elegy "Memory's Stain", in which a shared thrift-store sweater leads to ruminations on the unwashable blots that reside in our subconscious only to pop up without warning. "Boozing is the highest aim when spittle won't get out Memory's stain," he sings, before a breathy bass clarinet takes over for the back half, its unique low tones planting many new memories of its own. And closer "A Knock Upon the Door" tells what could be a centuries-old tale of the tumultuous relationship between a minstrel and his creative muse. The song's repetitive verse-upon-verse structure stretches out to nearly ten minutes, but more oddball sounds-- the baroque, recorder-like chalumeau, a metallic dink in place of a snare drum, and the ominous door tap itself-- keep things intriguingly askew. "The Lonely Doll", meanwhile, holds its story of a drunken louse and weeping woman aloft over a pillow-y Hammond B3 and brushed drums, the woozy lilt a convincing callback to Leonard Cohen's 1967 debut LP.
In a handwritten note to Stereogum, McCombs recently wrote, "I know people get lonely because I do, so that's what I end up writing songs about, how you get lonely sometimes and come up with these big ideas that give you meaning for a second but then leave you like everything else leaves you." The statement is economical and accurate, if overly modest. Because while there are lots of musicians trading in loneliness out there, most of them often veer into a self-pity that can leave listeners even more far gone. But the intangibility of WIT'S END makes it a more realistic and reliable companion, its elusive secrets offering a queer comfort. At the start of his first album, A, Cass McCombs posed the question, "Is it dying that terrifies you, or just being dead?" On WIT'S END, he's come up with an answer; on "Buried Alive" he sings, "If I'm alive or dead I don't really care, as long as my Soul's intact." He's got soul to spare." - Ryan Dombal, April 22, 2011 / Pitchfork
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Swarming guitar fuzz, bass waves, insistent drum throbs and Jana Hunter’s redolent, charred voice are the core components of Baltimore’s Lower Dens. Hunter, sometimes known for intimate, ghostheavy weird-fi, now writes and plays with a group that might get filed under new wave, or drone pop, or post-punk. With due deference to her solo work, we’re very glad.
The band’s debut full-length record, Twin-Hand Movement, is eleven perfect songs long. From opener “Blue & Silver” (anxiety mounts at a quick clip until the final climactic release) to “Plastic & Powder” (a churning, narcotic slow-burner) to “Hospice Gates” (penultimate album cut, proud weirdo anthem, possible creative zenith), not one is a space-waster. They’re rife with the survivalist paranoia one expects from residents of a post-urban port hole (and this particular songwriter), crafted methodically and beautifully, and carry the listener enthusiastically out into the rolling breaks of industrial filth-water.
Lower Dens formed in early 2009, when Hunter set about finding a full-time band. They spent the rest of the year sweating in attics and basements, and only stepped out of the shadows to do a quick tour and record. Twin-Hand Movement was recorded by Chris Freeland (ex-Oxes drummer; proprietor of Beat Babies, Baltimore), mixed by Chris Coady (at his DNA, NYC), and mastered by Sarah Register (of the Lodge, NYC and the band Talk Normal.)
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$10 in adv, $12 DOS, 18+
Doors @ 8:30 pm
Advance tickets available @ Ticket Alternative, Criminal Records,
Decatur CD, Fantasyland Records and the following CD Warehouse locations: Buford, Duluth, Kennesaw, Lawrenceville and Roswell.
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