David Berman, you've got to hide your love away.
The Silver Jews' perpetually hungover, hopelessly romantic front man finally found his soul mate. She's got a cartoonishly cute voice, an appealingly offbeat sense of humor and, apparently, a short leash. Enter Cassie Berman, now permanent band fixture and David's wife of two albums. Exit Berman's wingmen, veterans of the band Pavement, Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich.
Also on the outs: the group's honk-if-you're-lonely signature stupor.
Though marital bliss isn't exactly conducive to recapturing the downer glories of the '98 milestone "American Water," matrimony hasn't yet sapped Berman of his typically twisted wordplay. On the new record, "Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea," he's still a cheeky smart-ass, he's just a cheeky smart-ass without a killer band.
This means â€" to play the obvious pun â€" the Silver Jews, in this carnation, tread water rather than scale peaks.
The set consistently marries solid pop melodies to a ramshackle, countrified twang that both adds to the collection's playfulness and imparts a sort of bizarre novelty value to a sound that was once too assured for novelty.
As evidence, "Aloysius, Bluegrass Drummer" reconstructs a Charlie Daniels backwoods rave-up into two minutes that fall only a fiddle and a redneck short of "Devil Went Down to Georgia." "San Francisco B.C." likewise finds Berman in rattle and hum storytelling mode as he pays tribute to his favorite Bay Area fixtures, namely vegans and cross-dressers.
Cassie chimes in now and again for beauty-meets-beast vocal harmonies employed for greatest effect in the triumphant shouter "Strange Victory, Strange Defeat" and in the chorus of "Suffering Jukebox."
The latter song also reveals an inadvertent Malkmus contribution in the form of a lifted guitar line from Pavement's open road classic "Range Life." It's not only an album highlight, but (off the top of my head) the best tune about a downtrodden piece of metal since Sabbath's "Iron Man."
It is here that husband and wife shine brightest, yet Cassie's vocals can't match the impact of her mere presence. Her clean living, peppy charm has kicked prime beer buds to the curb, and along with them, the group's browbeaten appeal.
I am all for happily ever after. But damnit, Yoko, you're breaking up the band.
