I initially frowned on Guided by Voices auteur Robert Pollard’s decision to remake Eighties spazz-rockers Phantom Tollbooth’s underrated Power Toy with his own vocals and lyrics. He renamed the album Beard of Lightning, and it received appropriately mixed reactions once it was released. I, for one, had grown weary of the by-mail collaborations that Pollard diluted his ever-expanding Fading Captain Series with. These albums often consisted of him raggedly singing lackluster lyrics on top of the uninspired backing tracks of his collaborators, and the weaker moments of Beard was certainly no exception. A year and a half later, though, it seems that Pollard was on to something with his artsy karaoke experiments. Right now, I’m listening to the Love of Everything’s latest full-length Hand Job Community and seriously wishing that I could make my own Beard of Lightning with it. I don’t think I’ve heard a single rock record this year in which the potential of the music is so thoroughly squashed by the incompetence of the vocals until now.
Love of Everything front man Bobby Burg is better known as the bassist of Make Believe and Joan of Arc, two of Tim Kinsella’s many projects (at this point, they’re too fluid and interchangeable to be considered “bands”). Burg’s own music could be considered a more approachable and concise version of Joan of Arc’s, which is mostly a good thing. Burg’s lyrics aren’t as elliptical as Kinsella’s, his music isn’t as bent on subverting itself, and his songs rarely cross the three-minute mark. However, even JOA diehards might end up hitting eject the second Burg opens his mouth to sing. Tim Kinsella isn‘t exactly Al Green himself, but the force and originality of his delivery compensates for the bum notes. Bobby, however, frequently sounds like he doesn’t even know WHAT notes he’s supposed to be singing, let alone how hard he’s supposed to strain to reach them. The sheer ineptitude of his vocals makes the first half of Hand Job Community an especially difficult listen.
The album is oddly sequenced in that for the first 10 tracks, each song becomes prettier and calmer than the one before it. The drumming on opener “Hotel Parties” consists of little more than skittish hi-hat fills and kick/snare beat displacement, but by the seventh track all traces of rhythm have disappeared. Even when the songs are crammed with instruments (jaunty Rhodes pianos, droning Hammond organs, leisurely strummed acoustic guitars, amplifier feedback), all of them play simple parts that leave Burg’s voice front and center. His screeching attempts at falsetto on “Beginning with Answers” are painful to listen to, and his tone-deaf crooning on “Proud Brave Nothing” and “It’s Better” conjures images of an adult Alfalfa attempting slow jams. What’s so sad about this Achilles’ heel is that if any of these songs were sung by a more capable vocalist, or even turned into instrumentals, I’d put at least one of them on every mix CD I make this month. Burg just isn’t a good enough singer to pull off songs as understated as these.
However, just when the music is about to devolve into background noise,
Burg and company kick up a fuss in the middle of the 11th song “Lies Keep Us Kind.” From that point onward, the music starts rocking and Burg gets more assertive as a vocalist; ironically, the more he whoops and hollers, the more in tune he gets! On “Iceland in My Mind,” Burg yells “I need one little fix to get me through the night!,” and the music complies with his request through a cacophony of gunshot snare drums and fuzzy guitars. The frantic strumming of “I Love You Guys Fast” is as exhilarating as the best Boyracer miniatures, and “Fortune” is a lazy “lo-fi” shuffle that could have fit on Pavement’s Perfect Sound Forever. The title track climaxes with splashy power-chord bashing, and with Burg running his voice through a delay pedal, until it sounds like a chorus of gibbering eunuchs. The contrast in quality between the album’s first 11 songs and its last five is attributed solely to Burg’s unexpected decision to let loose.
Lyrically, Burg is at his best when discussing failed relationships in deceptively profound plain-speak. “Proud Brave Nothing” closes with the lament, “I want new friends/You won’t matter then…I don’t want to disappear/I just don’t want to be here.” “Fortune” sums up a love affair in decline: “The kiss is always short/and the bags are piling up/My attention’s wearing thin enough.“ On “Kissed Like a Pillow,” Burg gives an ex her emotional walking papers: “It’ll be better if you never forgive me/If I never loved you, only better!” Burg is at his worst, though, when he descends into unnecessary vulgarity. By no means do I expect an album with a title like Hand Job Community to be squeaky-clean, but Burg’s more profane moments sound contrived, as if he’s deliberately trying to shock his listeners. It’s bad enough that Burg has to ruin a song as pretty as the third track by singing as if he can only hear the drums; it’s even worse that he has to call the track “Recycling Fuck” and give it lyrics like “your dick’s not fucking anymore.”
If given the opportunity, I would gladly remake Hand Job Community in my own image. I wouldn’t rewrite the lyrics --- not even the ones that I consider puerile --- but I would definitely redo the vocals. I’m no Al Green myself, but I’ve got perfect pitch, which gives me a huge edge over Burg. As much as I want to turn this album in to the first used CD store that will buy it, the greatness of its final third prevents me from doing so. This is one of the most frustrating albums I’ve ever heard because I see the potential lurking underneath the wreckage. If Bobby can outsource the vocals to someone else, Love of Everything can make a classic album.
--Sean Padilla
Label Website: http://www.redderrecords.com
Artist Website: http://www.loveofeverything.com
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