Devotchka 100 Lovers. Let us not mumble. They gathered together at the Blue Bonnet, gathered their plastic lawn furniture around in a semi-circle and decided to make a pop record that eschewed slurred speech. I am not allowed within the inner sanctum of Devotchka even though we do share the same city. Amazingly there is room enough in our quaint metropolis to contain the media clouds of the both of us without a great amount of interaction between us. This is a record for grand statements, for momentous occasions, for those sad souls who would ambush the love of their life at a ball game with a marriage proposal. I can imagine a young man playing the first track on a tinny speakered boombox back at the hot dog stand while his girlfriend's mug is larger than life on the jumbotron. He could be a hacker and hack into the stadium sound system and play Devotchka for everyone. I suppose it is the thrill of knowing absolutely, one direction or the other, how someone feels about you. But then you do not. Not really. I wonder if there are still manners enough in this world for someone to say "yes" but then quietly on the light rail ride home declare that they had only answered affirmatively because they didn't want to make a fool of someone in public. But is there that sense of decorum that exists in our world any longer? The idea of thinking of someone else before you think of yourself. It is dead. This is a miserable entry. I am feeling quite chipper. I've decided I really do like my house and if I have to, in the future, not ever leave this place again I might be amenable to said situation. I need more trees however. I can not be inspired by looking out at the Tree of Heaven(ailanthus for pedants) in the corner and notice the butchery completed by Xcel energy and feel compelled to change the world with my pen. When I ask someone to marry me I will do it in welsh, it will be to a stranger, she'll be wearing ear buds and think I am plain. But then I don't have any moments that would feel right being soundtracked by music this epic. Epic seeming? It's big. Big for a Devotchka record. Not 30 Seconds to Mars big. His voice is heroic. If I did have moments that required monuments to be constructed in order to document I might come back later with an eraser and erase all signs that I had ever disturbed the aether in any noticeable way. Not many people are aware of my existence when I leave a room. I carry everything with me, in a tiny pouch, held close, zip locked. When I play this record very loudly on my ride home I sing loudly as well. I open my zip locking pouch and scream my heart felt sentiments within. I am saving them for a time later when I can express them into the void. It befits my status as the most anonymous person in Denver, Colorado. Is this my narcissistic moment? Undoubtedly. How wonderful to live in a perpetual journey from one memorable moment to the next. I wrote a book. I told one person. Actually, I told two persons. One I have since decided to never speak with again, not for any reason at all, and the other I haven't spoken to since, not necessarily by choice but she had 4 other men to meet that week. I could have sung '4 men'. I could have melted her heart. A gay love song. But it's a big number too. My heart is small. Third track now. The pop song. I heard this on the "world class rock" station. If they had any sense they would be playing all of the tracks from this album. But there are John Mayer songs to be played and John Mayer collaborations to be played and then Eric Clapton. He shouts the verse. It's odd. It's marvelous. And now the chorus which reveals the album title among the other words and it's marvelous. There isn't a great amount of space on this record. There wasn't much on the last one. But they have muscled up. He's a film composer now. He's Jerome Kern? Bernard Herrmann? Korngold? Maybe. I read something that said that because he writes music for movies now that Devotchka's records are now cinematic. They've always been desperately visual. It's passion. When he sings he carves out a vision in the shadows, it's clear to anyone with a soul. My soul is partially erased and very small. Next track, jaunty baroque-ish opening, is it baroque? here's me trying to be erudite. I don't know anything about music. handclaps, violins, accordions and now bass and his voice, lovely. So incredibly lovely. Is this the best Devotchka record? Hmmm...they have abandoned their oddness, mostly. The odd moments pop up as singularities within these dramatic portraits of their worldly existence since they first met Greg Kinnear. How come there are two such romantic and stirring vocalists in Denver as John Grant and Nick Urata and neither really has attained the level of god among men anywhere outside of their small coterie of sycophants and handlers? Why? The world celebrates mediocrity these days. Look at our President, look at our Carmelo, look at our Johnathan Franzen. He's a much more accomplished writer than I am. But then so are you. But he's really boring and there isn't anything in his new novel that surprised me. I have recently finished Cloud Atlas as well and while there is some thrilling moments within their givens are so obvious. It is a given that David Mitchell is going to use a lame analogy to the holocaust when discussing clones and their demise. Or it was just obvious to me. Now to my favorite track on the album, The Man From San Sebastian. This is one that would have been weird. Back in pre-Hollywood Devotchka, back when they were odd. Now, this is merely thrilling. Oh and there was an interlude, just before this. There could be a hip new western composed while listening to this. How many hip new westerns are being filmed in the wake of the success of True Grit? Justin Bieber and Sam RIley(he's 17 don't you know) in a remake of Young Guns? Awesome. This will be on the soundtrack, but remixed, with a vocoder and a Snoop Dogg cameo in the video. There is tremolo, his gliding affecting voice, accordion, the old Devotchka standbys and it is marvelous. Really really really marvelous. I love the slight pause, the build-up, the payoff with the sinister space cowboy guitar riff just after the accordion riff and the express reason of this song being sonic pleasure. That's a pretty standard record reviewer type of thing to say. This is the one to crank in the car when you are getting off of the turnpike at Pecos driving past the Bodega and the Chinese restaurant that was once a car hop station. Then back to the uplifting folk on the next track with whistles and acoustic guitars and tambourines. A sequel to the title track? Really they should be composing music for all of the new westerns that will come soon. But then there haven't Ben any swashbuckling seafaring adventures in the wake of Far Side of the World, oh, a pun. I loved that movie. Perhaps I loved the ideas expressed within more than the movie even. The romantic notion of always trying to better oneself through achievement both personal and outward. The Captain and Ship's Doctor with their impromptu musical flutterings, the duty to country, the pursuit of knowledge, all very heroic and it would sound perfect coming from Nick Urata's mouth. his lyrics are alright, it is heart felt sentiments wrapped in a seductive package. I could write lyrics for Devotchka songs because it is hardly John Milton is it. But we don't require John Milton to have our heart carried above the uncaring masses. Devotchka normally sells out when they play here. I think. It is similar to how The Tragically Hip could somehow fill 20,000 seat arenas in Detroit but only 800 seat clubs everywhere else. Right? The Tragically Hip were never a national phenomenon. Right? In Detroit we were held hostage to CanCon on the alternateen station and because it was desperately important for Canadians to hear mediocre indie rawk made by authentically Canadian indie rawkers we were sometimes served up the Tragically Hip in overdose, Alanis Morrissette was alternative and the Gandharvas First Day of Spring was on the radio nearly every day for a decade. CanCon has done a great deal to advance the state of Canadian Culture, I am sure. But why is this in the purview of Government and do they do audits of records to insure that it is sufficiently Canadian and apart from almost always being mediocre what is so distinctively Canadian about Canadian indie rawk? Devotchka could be Canadian. I could be labouring under some strange misapprehension. They could owe all of their success to Chretien's culture minister. Who knows. But it seems that a culture that needs protection from a bureaucrat is one that is already terminal. This is the vibrancy of American culture and all of itinerate degeneracy in that it absorbs everything and creates something out of the seeming state of being spoiled for choice. But this is the wonder. The Gandharvas can release their godawful records here and we can ignore them and this is no great crime, they are horrid and deserve their fate, but then the Arcade Fire can come along and in spite of their dreary dreadfulness they too can win a grammy. Ah, but their singer is an American and they've only just been cleared to play the Fete Nationale. I am certain some talented bureaucrat with a guaranteed pension tied to the Hibernia project agonized for months over the decision to allow Arcade Fire to sing in English. Think of the children. Another Devotchka song is playing, another of the sweeping ballads with the thrilling production, the flamenco guitar, the dramatic vocals, the strings, ahh...we can become accustomed to luxury so easily. Will we ever be able to return o the days of QUeen of the Surface Streets? Probably. I sometimes think that I miss the spaces, the coldness that infected Dearly Departed the biblical passages that informed the hollowness. This one is called Ruthless. Very nice. Of course the Gandharvas are named after the protector of Soma. Does Jean Chretien know that his government is advocating the spirits of the air and essence of everything and thus endowing Hinduism with the government seal? Probably. Jean was probably a fan, he had probably first reached over on the night table for his Gandharvas cd to clobber Andre Dallaire with but after a fiery admonition from Aline decided instead to hide under the bed while his wife slammed the door and called the cops. Another spicy track, horns, insistent voices, pace, drama, lovely. It is over. Last track now. Sunshine, an instrumental that has a bit of a Primal Scream Screamadelica or Vanishing Point feel to it, a slow build-up and some strings all mixed in the mid range, tinny drums played on pots and pans and just a listless emotional tone. Should this be the last track? Uncertain. It could be an audition for the next movie project. I do like the moaning violin, there is a sophisticated ennui in the track and there are sharp implements introduced as a spruik in the mix that occasionally overcome the thickness and the desert of Wally Lamb.