Review Summary: Touching the hearts of even the heartless
Stylus Magazine’s Ben Wilson went a little too far when in describing The Lucksmiths’ 2005 release,
Warmer Corners, he rhetorically asked his readers, “Could there possibly be a better album to play as a real-time soundtrack to a well-intentioned tram theft on an autumn evening in Melbourne?” Directly, finding a relationship between
Warmer Corners and a tram robbery will profit nothing; to be honest, the two couldn’t be farther apart from each other than the north and south poles on a globe of our planet Earth. However, his wide swing to left field in his review of the album does bring up a good point, indirectly at least: the sum of
Warmer Corners’ parts - all the twee-pop, light instrumentation, love and heartbreak lyrical topics, and vocalist Tali White’s golden, smooth croon - does lend the end product to being easily adaptable to many situations and listeners’ tastes, in turn having the possibility of being enjoyed by a larger number of people than its creators might have initially expected.
A quick glance down a list of glowing reviews for
Warmer Corners on Metacritic finds us at one written by Cokemachineglow’s Peter Hepburn, who describes the album as, and I quote, “it’s smart, depressing, inoffensive pop perfect for a rainy day.” This description and a subsequent best-fit listening setting is much more effective at describing
Warmer Corners' sound accurately than that of Wilson’s, as you might easily infer; however, Hepburn also brings to mind a certain Glasgow septet in his description, if I may quickly redirect the reader:
Belle and Sebastian. Yes,
Belle and Sebastian comparisons have followed Australia’s The Lucksmiths all throughout their career together, and it’s easy to hear why with just one listen to a pop gem such as “I’m Even Further Away” - or any given song on
Warmer Corners, for that matter.
White’s vocals balance the fine line of the realm of the wholly inoffensive perfectly, the instrumentation from band members Marty Donald, Mark Monnone, and Louis Richter accenting this balance further - delicate, smooth, and candid guitar chords and light drum beats over choice accompanying melodies. A memorable acoustic guitar and vocal melody are the key to the Aussies’ success on the prior aforementioned “I’m Even Further Away”, many more such wins showing themselves on the rest of
Warmer Corners as well, with varying degrees of diversity. For example, a slow number that brings to mind a brooding Western with tumbleweeds lazily blowing in the wind in the Midwest of The States can be found in “If You Were Here, You’d Be Home Now”; here, The Lucksmiths slow themselves down to a crawl, making this song out to be the album's most long-winded cut, all the while displaying how the quartet can keep their charm and ear for melody and light, happy-yet-sad moods intact with ease.
Had Chris Carrabba's vocals been switched out for those of White on “Putting it Off and Putting It Off", the track might have easily fit itself onto
Dashboard Confessional’s
Dusk and Summer album, a remark that should remind readers that Miles and his boys will always be lovesick emotional boys at heart, just like Carrabba – yet this certainly works for The Lucksmiths and to their benefit as well. As alluded to earlier, the mood and sound of
Warmer Corners, heartbreak and all, lends itself to even being enjoyed by the most heartless of listeners. For in truth, consistency and pop hooks fill the tracks of the album, all of them, with lyrical lines that reside in listeners’ minds long after The Lucksmiths leave the speakers. Take some of the lyrics in the sunny-hit “Sunlight In A Jar” for example: “Like a self-help manual that's been written in Braille / It seems the more that we touch, the more we learn about our failings.” Here and many others are where The Lucksmiths show listeners that they ponder more about the game of love and try to understand it, rather than just play it nonchalantly surface-level or make music of like quality. But no, The Lucksmiths tell their tales of woe and heartbreak with wisdom and skill on
Warmer Corners, making quality music to fit the best album of their career, touching the hearts of even the heartless.
