Perhapst
Perhapst

Release Date: Aug 19, 2008

When I first heard about Perhapst, I prepared myself to fall in love with this album. The band consists of John Moen and Chris Funk from The Decemberists, Eric Louvre and Jonathan Drews. Given my love of The Decemberists, I’m good with the lineup. My excitement increased when I found out that Moen was the former drummer for both Elliott Smith and Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks. Oh, and Malkmus even joins in on guitar. OK, it’s officially amazing, and I haven’t even heard the first track.

All I can say is this: don’t be fooled by Moen’s credentials. What he’s brought to the table is a mish-mash of styles, none of which seem to entirely fit together to form a cohesive album. For some artists, the chance to work with so many different musicians might help their personal sound evolve. In Moen’s case, he seems to get bogged down by integrating so many different influences. On a good day, Perhapst could be considered “layered.” For today though, all I’m hearing is an album with no real direction.

I first listened to it on a recent train ride - because really, music is always enhanced by the Metra experience - and was impossibly disappointed by the time I rolled into Ogilvie. I’ll concede that my expectations were too high after I discovered the line-up, but is a decent, laid-back, indie pop/folk album too much to ask for? I guess so. But hey, at least some of the songs had influences that I enjoyed!

The second that “Incense Cone” came through my headphones, I had to restrain myself my reaching over to the person next to me and asking them if Moen sounded like a poor man’s Jeff Tweedy. Thankfully, I kept to myself and marveled in silence at how similar this sounded to Wilco. What’s even more interesting is that there is no other point on this album where his voice takes on a Tweedy-esque tone. Here’s where I do have to give Moen points for his grab-bag approach to music—his voice is extremely versatile, and lends itself well to many styles. However, when you’re trying to produce your first solo effort, it helps to have one defined sound, not five or six.

One of the best styles that he might want to stick to in the future is the rollicking folk sound featured on “Caution.” Between the harmonica and driving guitar line, his slightly twangy voice sounds most at home on this track. If anything, “Caution” is the redeeming song on this album. Moen doesn’t sound like he’s trying too hard, and this comfort makes for an enjoyable song.

“Harbour” sounds like it has promise, but the only reason it caught my attention was because he sounds remarkably like Beck, especially in the first line. The rest of the song is rather unremarkable, with lackluster guitars and boring lyrics. Save for an interesting key change near the end, it falls into bland territory.

With time, I think that “Aren’t You Glowing” might grow on me. I’m always a sucker for sappy lyrics, and “I can’t hold you hard enough” will probably make me smile after I’ve gotten away from this album for awhile. For now, though, I’m unimpressed by what this promising line-up has to offer - it’s not quite ambient enough to put me to sleep, but there’s not enough of a unified sound amongst the songs to make me want to actively listen to the whole album over and over again.