Yep, read the title of this post. Kaiser Cartel’s second album, Secret Transit, to be released June 8th is all of that and more…The Brooklyn based duo, together since 2004, and with a firm grasp of how to portray a highly arranged, very tuneful buncha songs always perform minor miracles on this flawed but wondrous album.
The flaw? When Kaiser doesn’t sing it misses a step and the production… produced by the male half, Benjamin Cartel (former Mellencamp sideman) and Aqualung, these guys care so much about the songs they can worry em too much and that’s a problem but it isn’t a deal breaker. And not always, sometimes it works, but when it doesn’t it doesn’t and the songs are overranged -oddly overplayed, your ears keep on getting interrupted.
The problem is manifest from the get go. “Riverboat Dream” includes gurgling water. I could take the slow build of sound to the starting line, the ear anticipates Courtney Kaiser’s consistently gorgeous (like breathtaking) singing but the river running through it? As musical metaphor it doesn’t work and on the folk moodiness (it is such a weird opening number as well: why wouldn’t they lead with something a little more listener friendly?) it leaves you with the wrong impression.
Secret Transit soon settles down and “Carroll Street” with its thumpy drums and so catchy it would fit onto the Bangles Different Light, might even get you dancing!! A natural born hit single (though: warning, Mr. Cartel and Ms. Kaiser -I can’t call em), a pop manifestation of the first order. Then “Falling” , a rock song, and a goodie I’ve been raving about for a month or so, followed by “Ready to Go” followed by the overarranged “Brave Enough”, which aches and swings through a world of strings. This song could end up on my best of the list but is that a xylophone? Why? Strings and strings and violins and everything is getting in my way, distracting from the background harmonies that join Cartel’s glorio..i am kinda failing adjective wise… gimme a second: Imagine standing on a mountain top and looking out, if you could hear that it would sound like Cartel on the high notes in this song. “Brave Enough”has an LA tinge, it is similar to Aimee Mann on her mid-90s albums best and it is wonderful.
Song after song hits your sweet bone with only a couple of numbers where Cartel takes lead vocals disappointing, even on the bound to be raved about penultimate “Memphis”. I loved “Memphis” on Kaiser Cartel’s daytrotter session which, despite my well documented love of the Horshack analogue producers, still suggest the album might be too clever. Incidentally, the other song off the album, “Carroll Street” doesn’t much improve so go figure. This is free and you should really go onto daytrotter and download the December 2009 session.
So anyway, the Cartel lead songs are a touch meh except when they aren’t, it is overarranged and… the bookends… And the bookends. I’ve mentioned “Riverboat”
Secret Transit ends with the eight minute “The Wait” which goes from movement to movement into dark places I am not certain I want to follow them. I haven’t reached a conclusion on this song yet but whatever I feel about it, my feelings are intense.
I haven’t heard Kaiser Cartel’s first album except for the daytrotter tracks so I don’t know where this one has taken them to. It has all the care, so much devotion to making lovely sound. Everything you hear is beautiful and moving. But is it all too much? It’s like a meal of banana splits: you want something cleaner, less obtrusive, you wish the songs were giving the freedom to breathe more. It is the curse of the pop sophisticate: Kaiser Cartel are too good at what they know, they just know that seaguls in the background will give the songs that extra layer of ache: that pull into the songs.
But will they?
I am going to see Kaiser Cartel next tuesday June 8th at Joe’s Pub (a 7pm gig, $15) with rock nyc contributer Brett Jensen (he will be writing the live review) and I really can’t wait. I wonder if they will simplify their sound. On their website they claim to want to “reach every person in the audience though our music and I think they can but can they just perform such well writer, such, truly, lovely songs, without all the clutter. Can they shut up and sing? Can they put the bloody seaguls to sleep.
One more thing, I don’t feel I have a very good handle on the album, and will revisit though probably on a song here and a song there. And reading back here I sound more ambivalent than I feel. Do I recommend it? Oh yeah, I recommend it. At its best, and i would count at least half the tracks as being at its best, it is a delightful dark creation: like dark chocolate with a cherry in the middle.