Written by: Dave Cantrell
There’s a calculated anticipation that precedes hitting ‘play’ on a new album from a band you’ve never heard before despite their having existed for a fifth of a century by the time your paths intersect* that, with the exception of course of sex, surpasses all its rivals. Not that there’s any great surprise in that seeing as the sheer viscerality of this art form that takes what are arguably the two most critical elements of our mortality – time and emotion – and twines them inseparably together like some treat for the soul concocted by the gods. Really, in terms of immediacy, what other art form aside from maybe poetry if read right has a chance at competing with that? Even if the result of that small action disappoints (too often the case but not so here), the power of that moment is in the possibility, the charm of ‘that’ magic’ reflourishing once again. Thus do we arrive at Earthbound, the seventh full-length from Chapel Hill-based band The Old Ceremony. [* – a quick aside: should anyone harrumph about the editor of a long-standing music publication admitting such holes in their listening history, please consider that, one, you can’t hear everything potentially worthwhile even if you were born with a thousand ears which, two, is actually pretty cool as it means the constant fertile flow of what’s often nothing less than sonic excellence crossing into your consciousness is essentially neverending.]
With a name derived, as the more astute among you likely know, from the title of a 1974 Leonard Cohen album, one would be forgiven for harboring a reservation or two at such presumptuousness but believe us when we say that TOC, since their very first efforts a full two decades ago, have more than ably borne whatever comparative pressures that fact may trigger and done so with an unforced certainty and grace, and in fact any suggestion of how-dare-you temerity is instantly dismissed via the simple above-mentioned act of hitting ‘play.’
Earthbound, in fact, wastes no time underlining the premise of that first paragraph while also seconding the opinion in the second regarding the band name as the opening track – in itself a not unbold move – sounds like 10CC had they kept that effortless cleverness they were so rightfully known for but applied it less to wordplay gymnastics and such (however enjoyable) and more to the basic if a bit enigmatic gambit of what it’s like to simply be alive, the arc of the heavens above you, the fall of gravity beneath, singer and songsmith Django Haskins (add banjo lap steel and sax to his particular toolkit; this is as might be guessed a very agile five-piece) sounding – somehow – wondrously grounded, which is to say, yes, floating and anchored, adrift and focused, a delicate dichotomy captured with the confident nuance of a band (Gabriel Pelli violin/electric guitar etc, Mark Simonson vibraphone/keys etc and rhythm section Shane Hartman and Nate Stalfa bass and drums respectively but also adding further touches) entering unbroken into its third decade.
Be it the irresistible, city-fied tropicalia of “Lonely Mayor,” the poor guy’s insecurities tossed about as if by a breeze on a, well, lonely stretch of East Coast beach, the mellow – if gently swinging – lament of “North American Grain” that could reasonably soundtrack those wonderfully washed-out color home movies of the 1960/70s so evocative is its vibe, the thrashy pop hijinx of “Valerie Solanas” where the band sound a wicked sharp cross between the VU and the Vibrators while, in its central reference to the S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting Up Men), reminding this aged writer of the Liverpudlian band Big in Japan’s track with that very title off 1982’s legendary To the Shores of Lake Placid compilaton which is a marvelous feat from multiple angles; the following “Salt Lake Sea” contrasting its predecessor in a dreamstate of troubled reminiscence (“the hot hot heat of the red red fire took my childhood home / nothing I could do but watch it burn“), or the delicate tension of “Hangman’s Party,” Haskins’s falsetto vocal strung between the song’s open and close as if tiptoeing across a highwire while the band lays out the groundwork below with just the right touch of downhome, subtle-but-intricate orchestration, Earthbound is a very satisfying listen, those nuances mentioned up top unspooling in a manner as naturally unforced as to make them less a highlight than an underlying asset that most bands would kill for and, you’re right, such is the easy, almost nonchalant prowess of this record that it prompted a single sentence to stretch across this lengthy concluding paragraph and that right there should convince you of its various merits so, yeah, don’t hesitate, seek this sucker out.
