Friday, April 10, 2009

Recent Acquisition = Company of Thieves, Ordinary Riches

A debut album is a terrible thing to waste. Musical first impressions couldn’t be more important for today’s fickle consumers—just look at the aftereffects of SXSW. So when a musical introduction is anything less than stellar, why wait around for seconds when there’s an all you can eat buffet always beckoning?

The same goes for a first impression that’s live, in person, before your eyes and ears, right? Wrong. Or at least I was.

The thing is I stumbled across the rising Chicago band Company of Thieves at last fall’s CMJ Marathon at the Bowery Ballroom and I was impressed. Juxtaposed with the underwhelming and average sounds of so many other groups Company of Thieves had a well-balanced and mature sound. Their songs seemed refreshingly melodic in that traditional rock ‘n’ roll way—and they weren’t another Brooklyn delegation by hailing from Chicago. I remember being impressed by guitarist Marc Walloch’s playing and densely rich tone and mesmerized by singer and ringleader Genevieve Schatz’s flower-child ethos and effortless singing. Surrounded by competent players they formed a tight sound and became a relatively positive footnote in the long hazy festival.

Company of Thieves @ Bowery Ballroom...





So imagine my surprise when I listened to their debut from Wind-up records, Ordinary Riches. Familiarities of the band I saw last fall protrude in places (Walloch’s vibrant guitars and Mike Ortiz’s precise drumming) but it seems to have been almost entirely displaced by a desultory band and sound. Most notable (and detrimental) are Schatz’s precarious and trite vocals; what I thought was a centerpiece that complimented the group became its albatross.

Lets begin, at least, with the best tracks. The laid-back tone of “Even in the Dark” gives Schatz’s voice a fighting chance, enabling the song’s soothing melody to linger. The song’s defiant message (“gotta find your calling/ Even in the dark”) was all the more moving this way.

“Oscar Wilde”—the designated single with a late night performance to boot (Last Call with Carson Daly)—gets off to a running start with catchy contrapuntal guitar riffs and an up-beat rhythm. Cunning is the onomatopoeic quality of the line “We are all our own devil” during each chorus, making it the strongest line of the song.

“Pressure” stands out as the only track where Schatz takes any sort of control over a song—though, again, it really only happens during the chorus. This is the album’s recurring problem.

On “Old Letters” a brooding, promising, Fiona Apple-type intro welcomes us, but, almost instantly, Schatz’s vocals are airy and weak, pushing out more air than sound (not unlike a John Mayer ballad). Then the album’s second recurring problem makes its way: there are too many meandering melodies. Productive bands always face this dilemma but the best ones effectively pare down their music to its most fundamental, and alluring, components. This is something Company of Thieves could learn.

“In Passing” demonstrates the above two problems well. Schatz’s thin voice nearly vanishes on the “O” sound when she sings “’round”. Later an ill-timed Latin bridge sounds forced, but its reprise is better placed and more fully realized.

After a blatant Steve Miller “Swingtown” rhythm part on “Under the Umbrella”, and a five second pause after hard-strumming chords, Walloch seizes the spotlight with an extended outro lick that evolves into a chorus of “na-na-nas”. But again, the outro is sonically unrelated to anything else going on in the preceding song, or album, and just seems like a means of giving Walloch free-reign over lots of improvisational space.

Overall, the lack of great melodies or compelling vocals leads to tedium. Good harmonies and arrangements can’t carry an album on its own, even if the frame outshines the painting.

It’s a shame that only glimpses of Schatz’s total vocal potential, which is consequently tied to the band’s, are present. More often than not her voice is breathy in that way that so many female vocalists think is seductive or emotive. Instead her voice is flat and tenuous, only rising to the front of the songs when mandated by the volume of a particular chorus.

If Company of Thieves could convince Schatz to sing with a leading voice and focused its melodies it might become the band I thought I heard six months ago.



STATS

artist: Company of Thieves
album: Ordinary Riches
label: Wind-up Records
US release date: February 24, 2009
IMHO? 32/100

1 comment:

  1. It seems this trio has come out of nowhere considering I’ve had trouble finding some informative reading material about the group, despite the fact Wind-up is currently the largest independently-owned record label in the world. I did, however, see they debuted on Billboard’s Heatseekers Chart at #5. That has to be some kind of representation for promise.

    The best aspect about this trio is singer Genevieve Schatz. She has a wispy, soulful voice and clearly has a lot of talent. If it weren’t 2009, I’d expect her to be singing in front of an old rockabilly microphone (go ahead and Google it). Schatz has that airy twang from decades ago. Even her photo in the album’s liner notes gives her a plain, flower girl-esque image.

    As far as the sound goes, there really isn’t one song I have to skip back to again and again. On the contrary, I will say the bluesy soloing guitar in the latter half of “Under The Umbrella” is impressive, as well as the harmonizing [backing] vocals. Start to finish, the instruments don’t exactly jump out and grab you – a little distortion here, some gentle strumming and percussion there, but nothing spectacular. The production is done well, however. Granted, production can only take a band so far, but it doesn’t go unappreciated. It’s just too bad the album as a whole isn’t memorable, vocals aside.

    While polished, Ordinary Riches is a so-so indie effort, and Schatz just isn’t the right fit for this alternative rock, poppy sound. Company of Thieves need to appropriately complement Schatz’s talent if they’re going to thrive as a complete package.

    ReplyDelete