What is it about unrequited love that often allows it to destabilize someone? Perhaps it’s just human faculty, to live through loss one aching memory at a time. Or, it’s conceivable to deal with loss as an exercise in cathartics—especially through music—healing our aching little hearts one song at a time. It seems that this is the theme on Getting To The Point Is Beside It, the sophomore release from indie-rock supergroup I Love Math, which features members of Deathray Davies, the Old 97's, Apples in Stereo, and the Paper Chase. Getting To The Point Is Beside It feels like it sounds, a gathering at a sticky mountain hinterland at dusk. Simple. Melodiously rustic. A nostalgic release of twangy hums rooted deeply in a honey-sweet alt-country.
The pastoral opener, “Some Bridges Are For Burning,” works nicely with a combination of warm plucking banjo, bending lap steel guitar, the shuffle of a country two-step, and the humble vocals of singer John Dufilho (Deathray Davies, Apples in Stereo). “Only Clowns Are Scary,” though lyrically vague and clichéd, skiffles its way to a near-perfect pop song, and while “This Is Something I Might Miss” and “I’ve seen Better Days” pick up the pace, they too continue to explore images of love, loss, and longing. As Getting To The Point continues, singer Dufilho reaffirms with his worn and wistful voice on “Volcanic Ash” that he’s still at loss, crooning, “If this all sounds too cheerful, where have you been? I could use someone like you around.”
Though Getting To The Point Is Beside It sometimes seems to be an amorphous reserve of snapshots of a life once lived, the album eventually takes off towards a more up-tempo, fuzzier indie-rock environment, but eventually returns to requite its purpose. Tracks like “Run Back Inside,” “The Shape Of The Sun,” and “Some People Get Away” find I Love Math soaring towards a bigger sound, one nearer to the collective’s native bands. Adding to its simplicity and missing from the record, albeit making up for it with an intricate soundscape of varying instruments, recorded voices, and ambient noise, is the trace of any cymbals. The band apparently wanted to keep the record’s instrumentation sparse, so drummer Philip Peeples (Old 97’s) used only snare, kick-drum, and tambourine, residing in a never-banal, always-smooth country shuffle.
It may not be Tone Soul Evolution, and it’s certainly no Too Far To Care, but it’s an album immersed in handclaps that will make you feel good. I Love Math’s collective ability to push their memorable, toe-tapping, sweet arrangements into a domain of pure Americana allows Getting To The Point Is Beside It to slowly wind itself into a good time spent with a perfect pop sensibility.
|