THE CIVIL WARS
The Civil Wars
Columbia

www.columbiarecords.com
 

It’s almost impossible to listen to this album without taking the hype into consideration: a fairly meteoric independent rise; a major label deal; a dramatic and mysterious mid-tour breakup; a #1 debut which half of the act refuses even to support by doing interviews.

So: How is the record?

The answer is not so simple. A cynic might hear a licensing bonanza; the band had early success with leasing tunes to TV dramas, and much of this album sounds tailor-made to do the same. A romantic may hear it as the last, beautifully played, beautifully sung gasp of a dying (platonic) affair struggling to come to terms with itself. A fan of country, folk, or “indie” will find plenty to help him consider this record within those canons. A comedian might hear the bass/programmed drum into to “Dust to Dust” and drop a reference to “Ice Ice Baby.”

But the record isn’t easily categorized or described, and an honest listen can get you caught up in the seeming heartbreak and emotion. The harmonies are so close, the lyrics so intense, the voices so fragile (except in the really bitter songs), that it’s hard to imagine that Joy and John Paul were never an item, that they have families and lives outside of each other. It becomes hard to divorce the album from what we know, hard NOT to hear it as a chronicle. But lest you think it nothing but heartbreak, songs run the gamut from the psycho (“Oh Henry”) to the sexy (“I Had Me A Girl”) to the sentimental (the chanson-inflected “Sacred Heart”).

Production is immaculate throughout, with an acoustic guitar backbone accented by mandolins, resonators, and chunky electric riffing – occasionally at the same time. Whether the end result is country, folk, Americana, rock or pop doesn’t really matter; the instrumentation serves the songs and feels remarkably cohesive. A notable exception is the album’s sole unadorned track, “D’Arline,” a letter to a lost muse. While the progression is ambitious, the duo sounds almost spent as they sing of what couldn’t be. The guitar buzzes a bit as the voices weave in and out, and the album ends on an odd note, beautiful, but feeling somehow incomplete.

— Dan Greenwood