The persona of the music critic is one I’ve come to despise. For some reason, I’m always asking myself, who is the real listener behind the façade? They certainly have a knack for clever comparisons and quick, self-referential prose, but what do they honestly think about this album outside of the cultural quips and subtle in-jokes? Maybe it’s because I associate music journalists with that abhorable breed of writers that find a way to obscure the true subject of writing (or analysis of the actual music) with a presentation of themselves as an intellectual consumer. An opening paragraph like this is sort of proving my point.
In all honesty, I didn’t want to like Surprises’ debut All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Die. When I first glanced at it, the cover art looked like David Bowie. And upon first listen, I was dismayed that the music was fairly conventional, inoffensive acoustic pop-rock. Out with the familiar arsenal of modifiers that most indie critics have come to rely upon (postmodern, angular, discordant, challenging—you get the picture). The truth is that Surprises treads some pretty familiar and well-worn territory, and their debut is the closest to the mainstream pop-rock demographic as I’ve got in my current iTunes playlist. So consider this a dropping of the persona. I’m through being cool, and I’m smart enough to admit that while Surprises plays it safe in terms of pop-rock, there is plenty to enjoy.
Just for clarity’s sake, Surprises is the project of one guy, Brooks Paschal, a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and music producer from Orlando, Florida. Also of note, the album is being given away (pay what you want for it, like the Radiohead model) through his website, a move characteristic of Paschal’s connection to his fans and the community he helps create through a variety of social networking sites.
All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Die starts off on a high note. As an album opener, “Crooked Smile” sets off like a slow, meandering stream, engaging but patient. Surprises eases in to the first verse with strummed acoustic guitar, piano accompaniment, and a slow ride-kick-snare backing, all complimented by sustained, reverb-laden notes. Each time I play this one, I can’t disassociate it from the alt-country sounds I associate with North Carolina front porches. “Wooden child, he moves / And he measures the day by his wounds,” a wonderful opening line that conjures the transition of Pinocchio from puppet to boy with the iconoclastic imagery of Christ. So begins Brooks Paschal with a lilting melody building to a chorus of vocal harmonies before falling back into the second verse. The track’s highlight is the room Paschal gives in the verses, not over-doing the piano or drums, but letting all the components fit loosely together.
“Crooked Smile” is followed up by “There’s A Light Outside My Room,” an exercise in simplicity. While Paschal’s moniker implies a band behind the album, Surprises works best when it is a solo operation; a man finger-picking strings of a guitar. This is Surprises at its best, intimate bedroom-pop conveying the recollections and faults of an unnamed character. Paschal sings, “But do you ever think of me? / Designs in the landscape of our failed symmetry.” His strength as a lyricist comes from his ability to reflect the emotion experience in the biblical imagery of Edenic landscapes. Here it is the dew on the garden outside the window, but elsewhere it is in the trees and the skies where the secular and the religious mingle, and I’m often left with the impression that while faith is a source of power, renewal and comfort, it is also a place associated with heartache, missed opportunities and regrets.
It’s difficult to talk about Christianity and music as a reviewer with very few overtly religious albums in my collection (Do I count post-break-up Sunny Day Real Estate?). It’s just not something I’m familiar with. On my first listen it was “Magnolia Tree,” the fourth offering, where I began to recognize the overt Christian overtones on this album. Of course, the religious imagery is there from the beginning, but Surprises uses faith wisely, often employing it symbolically, and coupled with more familiar, secular themes prevalent in pop music: the transition of from one phase of life to another. However, a pop-rock album that is also a quasi-Christian album may be a deal breaker for some. And I get that, especially with the conservative proselytizing of the genre. All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Die invites faith-based interpretations, but not to the exclusion of others.
“Sinners and Saints” smartly plays with harmony and syncopated rhythms, and sees Paschal at perhaps his most expressive, abandoning the airy, whispery vocals which compromise much of the album for some comparably unrestrained emotion. While aspects of the track are almost too theatrical for my taste, it is a welcome diversion from some of the other tracks making up the meat of the album. Other high points include some of the latter selections like “The Park/Four Eyes” which unexpectedly shifts from the familiar guitar/piano formula for some electronic experimentation, one of the few moments of true surprise, and one that left me yearning for more unexpected changes like this.
One of my biggest criticisms deals with the blandness of some of the songs. “Don’t Tell Her Why” comes off a little flat lyrically and musically, and is representative of the handful of tracks that represent the weakest aspects of this album, one’s that fail to engage Paschal’s knack for less predictable harmonies and melodies. While some of these tracks are well-suited for a mainstream audience, my ears were just simply bored. Yet even a track like “Tom Runs This Town,” which I originally cast aside as too generic in its verse-chorus-verse structure and simple phrasings, have grown on me.
I feel weird reviewing this album because, like I’ve mentioned, it’s got all the trappings of a genre that I’ve largely ignored. Giving this the full 10 listen treatment has been a good exercise for me. My enjoyment of Surprises has taken me by surprise. Given that the album is being distributed digitally by a pay-what-you-want method via Paschal’s website, it may not be such a bad idea to give All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Die a try.
