Of all the archetypes that appeal to people, the one I’ve understood least was Smartest Drunk In The Bar. Even at the most odious end of the archetype spectrum there’s at least something to recommend: I’m thinking of Cocky Hipster Cads and Round-Heeled Scenester Groupies, who will hate themselves in time, but at least get to have lots of sex until then. What does Smartest Drunk In The Bar get? Props from passerby for an especially piquant Dylan Thomas reference? The joy of identifying with main characters in Charles Bukowski’s stories? I don’t see it, personally. Might as well be Physically Unclean Visual Artist and take it easy on your liver, I say.
And here is Fortune, the new full-length from one of our defining Smartest Drunk In The Bar (SDIB) bands, The Mendoza Line. Singer-songwriters and founding members Peter Hoffman and Timothy Bracy and Shannon Mary McCardle hold down vocal and songwriting duties, and all fill a particular SDIB niche. Bracy and Hoffman publish their collaborative compositions under the moniker Avant-Drunk Music and Bracy sings with an increasingly pronounced Dylanesque slur and uber-tipsy diction; this means that his extraordinarily literate (and often very incisive) lyrics can come out slurry and hard to understand, but that’s presumably the idea. McCardle, for her part, plays the classic SDIB tough gal who drinks whiskey with the boys. Their albums’ rambling liner notes read like lackluster contemporary fiction and show the group sparring with each other and lazily lounging like louche lushes (shit, it’s contagious!) all over decadent Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It looks terribly dilettantish and lame here on the page – and sometimes sounds that way on record, too – but all three songwriters are seriously talented, and this is The Mendoza Line’s third consecutive fine full-length.
In 2002 they broke through with Lost In Revelry, a wildly diverse chunk of smoking SDIB-core with literate-verging-on-logorheic lyrics and several truly great songs. At times on that record all the show-offy erudition and I’m-SO-drunk stylings felt a little… undergraduate. But when everything clicked – as in the album opening “Damn Good Disguise,” which is one of the best songs of 2002 and many other years – The Mendoza Line was clearly onto something great. And now, in Fortune, they’ve really gotten their act together. They’re still not doing much more than writing smilingly recriminatory songs about relationships and playing pretty, melodic country-tinged rock, but when “your act” is being beery and erudite, that’s all you need to do.
And, seriously, it’s hard to complain too much about Fortune’s self-conscious SDIBness. The over-the-top slurriness of the album opening “Fellow Travelers” is jarring at first, but soon it fades into an extraordinarily interesting jumble of literate Bracy/Hoffman lyrics (did he just say “mindless incrementalists?”) and boozy atmospherics. Even better is McCardle’s follow-up, the wry and propulsive “Faithful Brother (Scourge of the Land).” She further cements her status as a sardonically hilarious poet of drunken urban parties (and patron saint of long-ass song titles) with “It’s a Long Line (But It Moves Quickly).” Not all Fortune’s songs have the same staying power – a few of the slower weepies, while invariably heartfelt and pure old-country/new-postgrad in their pitch-black outlook, sound a little similar – but when the songs are good, they’re terrifc. The slow burning “Let’s Not Talk About It” has real heartfelt sweep, and the jaggedly melodic “Road To Insolvency,” is probably the best jukebox song ever to deal in bankruptcy metaphors. And it’s hard to argue with the T. Rex-y bounce of “An Architect’s Eye,” even if it does contain some of the most mannered/faux-wasted vocals on the record. Lesser numbers slip by in a vague, countryish blur, but the best songs sting and stick with uncommon force. McCardle’s contributions are especially strong here, and her classic-country vocals contrast nicely with her observant and fiercely witty lyrics. At their best, Mendoza Line has the crunch of Summerteeth-era Wilco, with lyrics that manage to be quotable and SDIB-verbose while also sounding good and offering a few wry grins. This isn’t a perfect record – The Mendoza Line’s shtick is too thick for a mistake-free outing – but it’s safe to say that several of 2004’s best Wilco songs are on this record. If nothing on Fortune quite jumps out as much as the best songs on Lost In Revelry, the record is stronger throughout and musically more fun to listen to.
To a great degree, falling for Fortune depends on your tolerance for Bracy’s whingingly mannered vocals and a taste for the slow-to-midtempo countrified ballads that make up a good portion of the record. I’m clearly on the fence about the latter, and I’ve been in too many bars with too many laughing-too-loud hipsters to deal with the second very well. And yet this is a fine record with a lot of fine songs on it: the rhythm section of Paul Deppler, Sean Fogarty and John Troutman keeps things humming along all the way through, and music this smart is hard to deny. Especially when it keeps reminding you how smart it is. |