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tindersticks_____
BY ALLEN SHEETZ | irony and pathos -- strange bedfellows in contemporary British pop music -- commingle like ingredients in an extra dry martini on the London-based Tindersticks' third full-length release, the crafty and pointillist "Curtains." Singer-lyricist Stuart Staples' self-referential words, half-muttered and only decipherable in snippets, paint a dolorous portrait of dissatisfaction and frustration with a world that will not operate on his terms. When the curtains fall, which they inevitably will, where will you be left standing -- or huddling? The Tindersticks want to know, and listening to their pained exploration for an answer is fascinating. "Curtains" plays out as an aural equivalent of cinema verité, but with a better budget. A U.S. bonus cut, "A Marriage Made in Heaven" (originally a 1993 British indie single), which closes the disc, features actress Isabella Rossellini and further underscores the cinematic quality of the album. "I had no idea she needed direction," Staples mutters/sings on "Marriage," a bouncy, jangly tune that fondly recalls Serge Gainsbourg. The unmusical Rossellini gargles/sings over and again, rather appropriately in the Tindersticks' milieu, "He moans and groans." Come on, dear Isabella, what else would he do? Staples' smoky barroom growl, after all, is firmly rooted in the tradition of Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Scott Walker and Lee Hazlewood. The album's arrangements, the Tindersticks' strongest suite, are more sublime than ever, and elevates "Curtains" from merely good to exceptional. A 23-piece string section dances at the edges of "Curtains," occasionally coming to the forefront with soaring intensity and grandiosity. Brass and a gently strummed, flamenco-sounding guitar, as captured on "Let's Pretend," bring to mind Rodrigo by way of Lorca, a ruby red Spanish heart as sweet and sour tipple. Elsewhere, vibes, organ, piano, violin, bass, drums and subtle electric guitar create a loungy sound that seamlessly backs Staples' smoldering broodfest. The perfectly titled "Desperate Man," meanwhile, is lifted directly, at least it sounds to be, from Ennio Morricone's score to "Once Upon a Time in the West." The musical sum of "Curtains," enter pointillism, is greater than its parts. This is true both lyrically, as Staples' word clumps are assembled collagelike over the course of an hour, and musically, as mood weighs supreme, giving "Curtains" its sense of aesthetic completion. "Ballad of Tindersticks," the disc's sixth cut, is the album's centerpiece. This seven-minute song, really a spoken word rant over warped lounge jazz, recounts a nightmare of rock 'n' roll life on the road, antithetically opposed to, say, the lifestyle of Oasis. Eschewing glamour, Staples tells us he would rather be strolling about a London supermarket with his child. This booze-drenched reverie, which Staples claims is journal-scribbled autobiography, is as claustrophobic as it is mesmerizing: the airing of dirty, debauched laundry as catharsis. "We are artists," Staples wryly confides on "Ballad," and adds, "We are sensitive and important." A few lines later, he gives us a nudge and wearily mumbles: "Los Angeles, eight days in, our sense of irony is wearing thin." On "Bathtime," the album's first U.K. single and penultimate cut, Staples sings, referring to a rather thematically apt metaphor of dirty bath water: "I've been wading through it/Don't you know it's up to my neck/And it won't be long before it's over my head." It's another way of saying "curtains!" as the string's reach their crescendo and the band's about ready to call it quits -- at least until you spin it again. And most likely you will, as this is the Tindersticks' best album yet.
Allen Sheetz is a Seattle freelance writer who has written for MSNBC, Rolling Stone and Seattle Sidewalk. |
