DeVotchKa’s newest album breaks fresh ground for the band while still maintaining the elements that set them apart in the first place: a unique blend of pop, mariachi, and Eastern European folk music. The songwriting is more focused than before, the musicianship is astounding, and the music brilliantly creates a sense of place—namely the open sky and road of the American West. Nick Urata’s trembling tenor injects the songs with as much melodrama as they can handle, even when the words are a bit silly (which is often). With all the ethnic influences and inane lyrics that DeVotchKa manage to incorporate, the music at its core is simply great pop dripping with melodrama.
“Basso Profundo” opens the album with a carnival ride of mariachi and ska built around accordion, vigorously strummed acoustic guitar, and intense fiddle interludes. This sets the tone for the band’s poppiest and most energetic excursion to date. “Transliterator” transmutes from a piano etude (doubled with pizzicato violin) into a lovely texture of saccharine-sweet string harmonies. The song is jolted into turmoil with a chorus of guitar distortion and pizzicato strings as Urata angrily sings “You better mean what you say/You better say what you mean . . .” When the chorus of “The Clockwise Witness” drops in, the music swells to the epic sound of an Arcade Fire ballad as Urata mournfully croons “How long will this take?” over a soaring string line and bed of cello arpeggios.
Throughout, the musicianship is fantastic. All of the instrumentalists are on point, and the complex arrangements are a gorgeous counterpoint to the simplicity of the songwriting. In the instrumental “Comrade Z,” bowed strings and trumpet wind though European folk lines as a speeding violin scurries up and down a blur of scales and arpeggios over oompah sousaphone and bass. The song ends in a breakdown of tremolo violin glissandi and plucked strings fluttering like insects over dissonant trumpet harmonies.
What really makes this album shine, however, is its ability to create a sense of place through the music. “Along The Way” is open road music for driving through the desert at dusk. Urata’s reverb-y voice soars over a majestically strummed acoustic guitar, thudding bass, and spiraling fiddle and mariachi trumpet with lines like “there is a little piece of land in me/No other man can own.” This is the sound of the West’s endless sky—freedom and emptiness. “Undone” is straight out of a Spaghetti Western, an outlaw’s “letter” to his father sung over nylon string guitar with flourishes of accordion. Urata’s vocals are in top form throughout the album, relentless and bursting with emotion as they move from belting to screaming to mournful balladeering.
A Mad & Faithful Telling melds fantastic musicianship and world influences into a great pop record. The complexity of the arrangements never defuses their emotional content or sense of fun and makes for endless discoveries during repeated listens. The ability to so vividly create a sense of time and place without sounding like a novelty act sets DeVotchKa apart from the cookie cutter mold of so many of the band’s indie-rock peers. This is simply great music.
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