The Long Winters "Putting the Days to Bed" (Barsuk)
By Kyle Wagner
Thursday. Sep 14, 1:48 PM
Frequently spectacular pop choruses, but inconsistent verses.

John Roderick seems to be working diligently to create music that is soaring and expansive while still retaining a hint of bitterness. He can deliver spectacularly grand pop choruses (as in “Pushover,” “Sky is Open,” and “Ultimatum”), but his verses tend to be inconsistent. With lyrics that are often vague or cryptic just for the sake of being cryptic, it’s easy to lose focus when listening to the songs on Putting the Days to Bed only to be shocked back into a smile when the choruses kick in or when the occasional great lyric leaps out at you.

Roderick has a compelling, distinct voice that he uses to good effect, and he can occasionally even sell a lackluster lyric through sheer determination and delivery. He couldn’t quite pull off that feat on the recent EP Ultimatum, but he has better luck here. Still, despite the overall stronger effort, there are only a handful of songs that continue to shine after you listen to them a few times. The opener “Pushover” suffers from the passable verses/fantastic chorus issue that plagues much of the album, but the chorus is so massive and celebratory that it’s easy to look past that shortcoming. “Ultimatum,” which appeared in two versions on the EP, is tighter here and again the chorus is by far the best part of the song. The grandeur of the chorus from “Sky is Open” is also worth sitting through the bland verses just for those few moments of bliss.

“Teaspoon” is the most disappointing song on the album, though it’s not the worst track. It’s disappointing because the instrumentation and vocals are solid enough for the song to be a true pop gem, but the lyrics are almost distracting. The repetition of the word “teaspoon” just never sounds right and actually causes me to involuntarily twitch. I get the metaphor/metonymy, but the word itself sounds too awkward to function well as a repeated chorus. The rest of the songs on the album are not bad per se, but it’s difficult to shower them with any sort of praise so they just sort of sit there in liminal space.

A few great choruses and an occasional great lyric (like “Are you still training for the big race / by hoping the runners will die”) is enough to merit a listen or two, but even though you may find yourself unwittingly humming one of the melodies later in the day, most of the songs never completely sit well. Still, it’s a great improvement over the EP released earlier this year and a step in a promising direction.
www.thelongwinters.com
www.barsuk.com

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Kyle Wagner

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