This Could Mean Trouble Has No Trouble At All

Drew Danburry Dodges Folk Pitfalls, Embraces Earnestness

Drew Danburry
This Could Mean Trouble, You Don't Speak For The Club
Release Date: Nov 4, 2008

Drew Danburry’s latest effort, This Could Mean Trouble, You Don't Speak For The Club, could sell a lot of copies.  Then again, it might not.  It could change your life.  You could go see him and his eternally-mutating facial hair and fall in love.  Or you could not.  Drew doesn’t care.  If there’s one thing that this album proves, it’s that he’s making music for him. 

That’s not to say you won’t fall head over heels after just a few listens.  Danburry has what I like to call the “Oberst Factor:” he can sing the most ludicrous and self-involved lyric ever and make Glenn Danzig swoon.  Take the spectacularly somber, “Life Security:” “I don’t think I’m strong enough/To hold everyone up/with just my ego/why did you have to go?”  Sung from anyone without the “Oberst Factor,” you’d want to go postal on them, but Danburry just makes you want to send him a fan letter asking him to come sleep on your floor.

That’s actually where the album starts.  The first track’s plunking piano chords and gentle digital manipulation feels like waking up in a sleeping bag outdoors as the sun rises.  From here, Danburry moves into an almost Peter, Bjorn & John-esque vibe with “I’m Pretty Sure” that will have you “shooby-dooby’ing” along.  The '57 Chevy Impala of an album then shows its true colors: something in between neo-folk, Neil Young, and a healthy dose of precise experimentation.

Danburry proves his musical chops throughout the rest of This Could Mean Trouble with melodies that stick like glue and an instrument lineup that could rival Pet Sounds.  Filling out the instrumental roster, and highlighting Danburry’s ear for organics, “Execute” seems to have a drum machine part involved, that is somehow not jarring, despite it being layered over the most hushed and pleading lyrics of the whole album.  Perhaps the best part of all the complication on the record is the most simple part: multiple tracks explode at their climaxes with shouts and laughter in the background that turn the darkest of rooms into a bonfire with all your best friends, hand claps and all. 

This Could Mean Trouble walks a line between melancholic (“Billboards” with its wrenching ukulele) and boisterously confident (“L’ecole” with its uber-affirming lyrics and trumpeting explosion) that, ultimately, is refreshing, if not manic.  In the end, the album is book-ended by the same sentiment as it started with, the gentlest of longings for Alaska, something earnest and new.  And that’s exactly what Drew Danburry has given us: a full album of honesty, impressive experimentation in traditional folk forms, and enough sentiment to turn Ben Gibbard into an optimist.

Drew Danburry's Myspace Page

Drew Danburry's Website