(K)
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Oh, the nerve of some bands, to disappear into the netherworld of a possibly permanent "hiatus" after making a fascinating and completely unexpected sonic turnaround on their most recent record. SLGTM had been for so many years a grab bag of impulses and influences on the part of their chief architect, the ferociously gifted Fred Thomas, and the muddy production and girl group affect on superb records like Every Night and the delightful compilation Sound on Sound made them a scrappier, grittier alternative to the likes of Camera Obscura. But the band's sixth LP is another matter, an instance of an artist of considerable stature and restlessness choosing for once in his life to focus diligently on craft and precision, "precision" being a loaded word that nonetheless captures the power that roared forth on a lot of those 45s that altered Thomas' life long ago. The result, the winning and heartening Fill Up the Room, is like, I dunno, Stuart Murdoch teaming up with Built to Spill for the guitar pop bliss of your dreams?
To boot, Thomas songwriting and lyrical chops someplace in the ballpark of Stephin Merritt, and one great benchmark of Fill Up the Room's success by contrast to its predecessors is how strictly it devotes itself to melody as an end to itself. These songs have a clipped, lovable specificity about them -- the beautiful little piano flourishes are still there, though, and a bit of the Chiffons shows up on the profoundly blissful "Hands in the Snow" -- all dedicated to the presentation of a straight-ahead rock band's almost obsessively convicted way with the smart, admirably sincere pop ditty.
There are ragged elements here; Thomas still has that oddball squeak of his, and the surprisingly strong guitar tangents add an individualistic sense of joyful noise. Opener "Apple" conjures up a rougher vision of the prototypical garage band, a rather stirring performance that handily offsets the potential cuteness of the Belle & Sebastianisms to follow ("Make a Plan" and "Peg" especially). The long ones "When I Lose My Eyes" and "Money in the Afterlife" never wear out their welcome, brimming with nostalgic yearning, but you come and stay to hear Thomas chirping and yelping with charged and enviable abandon through sweet, brief perfections like "The Americans" and "(Even If You Die in the) Ocean." You can't help loving him even when he sounds like Tony fuckin' Orlando ("Edison Girls").
The revelation happens when SLGTM, having proved themselves capable of concentrating enough to rein in their Yo La Tengo-ish eclecticism to produce an accessible but muscular pop LP, marry all of the newfound restraint and polish you never knew they had in them to a pair of songs that would've otherwise fit perfectly in some form on Every Night. The glorious return of erstwhile former member Betty Barnes to the lead vocal helm, "Hands in the Snow," is a dead ringer for the Magnetic Fields; that's all, there's no bent catharsis or serious element to separate it, but being a dead ringer for the Magnetic Fields is something any band that knows its way around a pop song should strive for -- and it wouldn't have been possible ever before in the context of Thomas' usual preoccupations. And then: the completely unexpected flipped-around "Cecelia," intense and intimate, of closing treasure "Whitey Hands," a stark dance song full of ambition and trickery unimaginable on the group's earlier records, good as they were. That's just magic. Fred Thomas and the other members have recorded music sporadically since Fill Up the Room, but I can't help hoping there's still a sequel lurking somewhere, even if Barnes says she'll be gone by the time we hear this...
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