The first song on the new Great Lake Swimmers album bristles with orchestral rock energy; it’s a swirl of stringed instruments, a shuffling, brushed drum sound and an archetypal half-quiet male voice.  There’s certainly an air of some of R.E.M.’s pre-Monster material here,  but that might be my own bias towards attributing all mandolins to Peter Buck’s influence.  The first cut on the album, “Palmistry,” was my first exposure to Great Lake Swimmers (this is their fourth album, but I didn’t write for a blog for the first three, so they escaped my attention), but it offers perfect insight into what the band is doing.  It’s the kind of first track that’s like a firm handshake at an interview, revealing the band and the album as worthy of attention and consideration.  The album proceeds in the vein that the first track presages; it’s chock full of acoustic indie rock that both soothes and energizes.  It’s not a loud record in any sense, but it’s also not at all somnolent.  Not to overstate, but it has the same feel that an REM song like “Don’t Go Back to Rockville” does, haunting but upbeat while maintaining a certain seriousness without being stodgy.  (That’s a highly specific niche, but I think it works.  That’s also the last R.E.M. reference I’ll make, I promise.)

There’s a lot to like on Lost Channels (including the album cover, which is the kind of thing that invites over-analysis), but the album  really shines in the middle section; songs three through eight on the album comprise the best stretch of material on a record I’ve listened to this year.  They are songs that offer different visions of what folk-inspired music can do and they’re all top-notch.  For me, the album tails off just a shad  after “Still” (more on that later), but that six song stretch is the absolute truth.  “Pulling on a Line” the third song on the album, and the one that signals the beginning of the serious business, is catchy as hell; the band’s creative force and singer, Tony Dekker, sounds stellar on this track, his warm voice nestling into that mellowly swinging sound perfectly, intoning the killer chorus: “I’m just pulling on a line, but sometimes it pulls on me.” (If you’re not singing along in your car when he’s in that chorus, you’re off my Christmas card list.)  After that energetic sing-along, the band slows things down a ton for the spare and beautiful “Concrete Heart.”  It’s another song that jumps out, but here, instead of upbeat folk swing, it’s for the intensely understated instrumentation.  In the previous track, Dekker is in the middle of a fairly traditional acoustic sound and his voice kind of meshes with the music.  On “Concrete Heart,” it’s just an acoustic guitar, an occasional kettle drum noise, an almost impressionistic piano solo in the middle of the song and a violin; the emotional tenor of the song is perfectly reflected in the sound.  When Dekker hits some of the crushing lyrics, a voice joins in the background, just throwing in a little more emphasis.  It’s a forceful display that Great Lake Swimmers can slow things way down and still be successful; I’d argue that it’s far easier to pull of a song like “Pulling on a Line”; it’s hard to screw up that kind of classical Americana.  But, if you don’t have the fastball on a song like “Concrete Heart,” where there’s no shuffle to bail you out, it can be a train wreck.  “She Comes to Me in Dreams” keeps things rolling with one of the few electric guitars on the record, chugging out a rockier sound, which is a nice shift in tone.  “The Chorus in the Underground” is damn near a bluegrass song and it is a complete toe-tapper.

Two more songs lead up to the conclusion of the six song blockbuster that, for me, is the album’s absolute highlight.  “Still” is a jaw-dropping display of song-writing.  It’s the album’s most simply arranged song, with an acoustic guitar laying down three (I think) chords and a bass playing three notes behind that.  There’s nothing tricky, nothing fancy, just a repetitive beat behind Dekker’s voice.  The lyrics are what make the song and the instrumentation serves to highlight them; it’s almost as if the band knew that they’d done something really clever with the words and opted to remove all of the acoustic trapping and just let them shine.  This was a good call.  Each line opens with the phrase, “I’m still,” but Dekker manages to make that mean all of the things that it can throughout the course of the song.  To a degree it’s like good rap music, in that it shows how clever the dude who wrote the words is.  The best bit is clearly, “I’m still an arrow unshot, fixed in a bow, I’m still, I’m still.”  It implies both a cessation of forward movement, a willingness to take action and a continuous state.  Absolutely bad ass.  If I ever run for president, this will be my campaign’s theme song (even though the band is Canadian).

I mentioned that the album drops off a bit after “Still,” but that just might indicate how strong the middle section is.  I’d argue that the lyrical content gets a titch lazy and hackneyed in some of the later tracks. (“River’s Edge” is the biggest offender here, but I’ll let you come to your own conclusions.)  There’s also a weird little intermission in the middle of the album called “Singer Castle Bells” that is just a minute or so of, as the title implies, bells.  It’s an odd flourish that probably has a reason for inclusion, but it struck me as unnescasary and possibly a bit self-serving.  None of that matters in the broader scheme.  Even the comparatively weak songs have merit; the band is too talented to include any complete clunkers.  For me, it’s tough to live up to songs like “Still” and “Pulling on a Line.”  In July, once those are getting a little worn in the rotation, I’ll probably be higher on the album’s close.

Lost Channels is a record you need to listen to.  Pick it up when it’s released on March 31 and clear thirty minutes for that middle section.  Drop the needle on “Pulling on a Line” and soak it all in.  Word on the street is that Great Lake Swimmers pack a mighty wallop live as well, so pick out your beard, throw on a vest and check them out.

“Pulling on a Line” – Great Lake Swimmers

Grab Great Lake Swimmers at insound.