Rating My CD's: Beg, Steal, or Borrow

41. Ray LaMontagne and the Pariah Dogs -- God Willin' and the Creek Don't Rise


I wrote a while ago that I wanted to buy this, on packaging alone: Good band name, good album name, good cover art. A real K.I.S.S. operation.

I finally did buy it at Target a few weeks ago, and initially I was disappointed. Somehow, I'd built it up too much, and the actual album didn't quite sound like the album in my head. Or perhaps, I'd been listening to it exclusively in my car, and this maybe isn't a car record.

I'd like to the critic-y thing and put it in it's proper place and context in the Genre of Country, or Country-Rock, or Alt.country, or whatever, but actually I don't want to, because Genres Suck. The only reason I'd want to do that would be to demonstrate to other nerds that I actually know what I'm talking about, but has anyone who reads this blog (I know you're out there; I can see your pageviews) ever been convinced of that? To ask the question is to answer it.

At any rate, on my home stereo, this record sounds good. I still don't know who Ray LaMontagne is, but he has a decent voice (miles better than Jeff Tweedy), and by the standard of this album, a pretty good producer. This album is sweetness and light, mirthy misery, a soft summer shower. It's on right now, as I usually have a record on when I write about it, but right now I want to listen to it more than I want to write about it.

Music is supposed to be evocative, and right now this is evoking something pretty powerful in me. Something sad but determined, bruised but unbroken, stirred but not shaken. Or some such cliche, which is usually the thing you fall to when trying to put the language of the soul into the language of the mouth. Maybe if I reach for my Rock Snob's Dictionary, I can find a word that approximates my reaction to this record. Perhaps "plangent" will do:

Plangent. Stand-by rock-critic used to lend a magical aura to any nonaggressive guitar-based music (even though the word's primary meaning is "loud and resonating"). Stipes' muffled vocals and Buck's charming, plangent guitar made R.E.M.'s Murmur one of the most auspicious debuts of the 80's.

Aren't you glad I don't write like that? I sure am.


Grade: LL