The New Year

It's strange that certain kinds of music always do it for you. I found the New Year when I did a Google search for Bedhead - years after last hearing Bedhead.I thought that The End is Near was great and was pleasantly surprised that this one is too. I won't say that anything about it is surprising - it's got the quiet songs, the thoughtful lyrics, and the couple of rockers that you will play over and over. The production is well done.Overall a very solid album.

As a fan of Bedhead and the first two CDs from The New Year, I found their newest, self-titled one equal to the quality the Brothers Kadane and crew have shown over the past decade and the one before that. It's steady, reminding me of Pavement's more reflective moments, and with a bit of the post-rock ambiance combined with a Velvet Underground type of "afterhours" vibe.So, while "Folios" opens this record-- as brief as their others, just over half an hour-- rousingly, it's more typical for these songs to remain understated. The vocals can be a bit plain in tone and they may grate a few listeners unaccustomed to this style, but fans of Stephen Malkmus, Lou Reed, or the Feelies should have no problem getting used to the quavering approach. "The Door Opens," in fact, points towards the New Jersey New Wave sound with a jerkier, more jittery delivery than one has come to expect from the Austin, Texas-based ensemble.There's one song, "The Company I Can Get," that for me hits a slightly off-key note. Not in music, but the lyrical inclusion of the only possible acquaintance for the singer being a "redneck" does hint of condescension as well as irony. I guess it's a Texas alt-rock thing. It's not a bad song, but the attempt at mockery of others or more likely self-mockery comes off too flat.To sum up, it's an album in line with its predecessors. The increasing amount of piano-based ballads go by as quickly as the snappier tunes, and while I favor the latter's propulsion more than the former's reticence, there's a connected air of maturity on most tracks that leaves you aware of time passing and reflective moments. For a band that takes about as long between albums these days as the space between an Olympics or a new presidential term, that's fitting.

As always, I guess it helps to know a little bit about the subjects in question while listening/ viewing/ reading the art being placed thereon display, and I know that the members of this group happen to live scattered about at least one country. So it's not necessarily fair to compare this album to, say, the first Bedhead LP, although there are some pretty great moments on this self titled record. The first one being "The Company I can Get", which may actually be one of the better Kadane songs that I have heard. Another one is "The Idea of You", which seems particularly well thought out. The flip side to these complimentary moments are songs which might be strong showings for other groups but seem rushed in this company. "X Off Days" is one of those songs where they up the tempo, and it just seems awkward, as these moments often do when these song writers try and do this type of thing. There's less emphasis on the every-note-counts-factor, which is what, I think, most people appreciated about Bedhead. So at times on this record it seems like they are phoning it in. But what can you do? Careers, distance, life, etc. It gets in the way, imaginably.

Pakaging perfetto.Album fantastico.