It can be a daunting task to approach any project Jeremy Enigk touches without mentioning, or viewing it through the lens of, Sunny Day Real Estate. While I have officially now failed to do so in this review (in the first sentence none-the-less) the listener who succeeds in taking Enigk’s World Waits, his first solo effort in 10 years, without the trappings of context are rewarded with a wholly refreshing experience from perhaps the most stylized, unique, and recognizable voice of the last fifteen years.
Where Enigk truly excels and shines on World Waits is in his ability to craft a musical narrative, which bolsters nearly 25 players over the album’s ten tracks, and avoid cluttering his songs with unnecessary pomp or musicianship—Enigk takes so much and effectively makes it sound succinct and not over-performed. This becomes readily apparent with the brief interlude “A New Beginning,” a soft and building flurry of guitar, strings, and loops, book-ended with Enigk’s voice, which crescendos and drops us into the simple guitar introduction of “Been Here Before.” And thus is the arc of World Waits: quiet moments that seamlessly and almost unknowingly layer themselves into melodically textured movements from song to song for roughly 40 minutes.
Weaving its’ way through these songs is Jeremy Enigk’s strong vocal sensibilities; one that appears to have grown increasingly focused on its’ place as another layer of instrumentation rather than as a mere delivering of words. This is perfected on “Cannons” where the vocals are seemingly spread against the swelling of strings and keyboards, and juxtaposed against the most punctuated and strong-armed drumming on the album. And this element of World Waits is critical as Enigk explores lyrical themes of place, and movement: “Only life can show me how . . .if you ask, you’ll see” in “Damien Dreams,” or “By the lake kicking feet on the slope/All have fled, words half said . . . can I run back to you?” in “Dare A Smile.”
While Enigk’s lyrical imagery at times has grown less obtuse and slanted than his output with Sunny Day Real Estate—two qualities I have never considered negative when lyrics are involved—it is Enigk’s appreciation and capacity to allow for musical movement and place to naturally occur on World Waits that creates both the satisfaction you can take from the album, and the warranted subsequent listenings. Enigk’s artistic abilities mature as his focus on what I think of as an “expansive terseness,” and World Waits is an exercise of such. |