Review Summary: Lullaby, an Alt-Country quartet made up of future members of Bright Eyes and Cursive, really shine on debut.
Lullaby for the Working Class is, if you will, a Saddle Creek fanboy’s wet dream. Ok, so it’s not exactly Conor Oberst naked on film, but any project that combines future members from Cursive and Bright Eyes, the label’s flagship artists, is more than worthy of unconscious ejaculation. Formed in the mid 1990’s and made up of Ted Stevens (Cursive guitarist), Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes producer/multi-instrumentalist), A.J. Mogis (Producer who has worked with many members of Saddle Creek’s roster) and Shane Aspegren (Bright Eyes contributor), the quartet make come of smoothest, most emotional, Alt-Country available. Their debut,
Blanket Warm is a fine example of exactly what Lullaby are capable of.
Blanket’s third track,
Turpentine , may just be its high point. The song is entirely drumless, instead relying heavily on glockenspiel, banjo and dense acoustic guitar to carry the song. Two minutes or so of quiet finger picked riffs and soft vocals culminate to a build up that finds Stevens and company shouting
“Where is your compassion?” overtop heavy, yet still oddly drumless, acoustic strumming. The rest of
Blanket Warm doesn’t venture too far from this style; the album is full of tracks that find Lullaby picking acoustic guitars underneath Stevens’ calm, yet poignant, vocals. This stripped down instrumentation gives Lullaby quite the refreshing sound, which, compiled with the quartet’s relatively superb songwriting, makes for a damn good album.
One can definitely hear where elements of Lullaby’s successors come into play. The brilliant interplay between instruments, along with Stevens’ voice recalls Cursive’s masterpiece, Domestica (despite the fact that most of that album’s vocals were sung by Cursive frontman, Tim Kasher), while the use of acoustic guitars, banjos and the like bring to mind the later days of Bright Eyes. Despite these similarities,
Blanket Warm sounds more like something that Wilco would demo more than anything Saddle Creek has ever released.
Honey, Drop the Knife is a prime example of this. During the choruses, when the usual dense instrumentation drops out and leaves only Stevens and a banjo behind, the Alt-Country influence is at its greatest.
The Drama of Your Life , another Wilco-esque track, shows Lullaby at their most tender and forlorn. Throughout the song, acoustic guitars are led by sad-sounding strings into a soaring chorus that finds Stevens at his best (and most Jeff Tweedy like), vocally.
Lullaby for the Working Class are one of those bands that you just can’t believe aren’t ridiculously popular. Nearly every moment on
Blanket Warm is worthy of praise. Some tracks are catchy, the album’s best choice for a single
Rye , others sad, album closer
Good Night , but each of the thirteen tracks is great in its own way. Fans of much of Saddle Creek’s catalog should find themselves at home with Blanket, even if Lullaby doesn’t sound a whole bunch like Cursive, etc.
-Dan
