winterpills by rick baker

A Week With Winterpills' "The Light Divides": Day 3

20 April 2007
tell your friends... tell your friends...

Words by Tony Conte // Illustration by Rick Baker

Day three with Winterpills has been a mixed bag (if not only for the fact that it’s taken me two days to make this happen). As I am an honest man, I will tell you that I’m knee-deep in day four. Why this inconsistency? The album is just…simple.

This is not to say that the arrangements offer no interesting divergence from their original paths. Au contraire, each song stands alone, a testament to the strength of songwriting. Moreover, each song fits with its jigsaw conterpart to create a consistent album of singles. It’s not often that a musician or a band can make that happen. The requisite relaxation of form necessary to create the sense of a cohesive album is what too often relegates a group of songs to the bargain bin…normally because the songwriter has not indulged in any kind of pop sensibility. (See: Chris Robinson’s solo efforts)

I planned for day three to honestly convey how the lyrics still won’t gel for me, how the songs seem an irrelevant act. Like the most recent remake of “Psycho,” shot-for-shot. Why bother? If I were a more jaded man, I’d suggest that whether or not music is bad has nothing to do with its ability to catch on: The Notorious B.I.G. is still charting with the same old crap his people had been piecing together posthumously, which may or may not be what he’d planned…but none of which seems a strong departure from his early stuff…for obvious reason: the guy is dead. Still, Winterpills have crafted a strong album.

Then I stepped back, took a deep breath, waited a day and listened without really listening…and voila!: The Light Divides continues to be a great album. I caught myself humming along to the more upbeat songs and even, dare I say, enjoyed this listen. It’s one thing to understand and appreciate a song, to know why it works, and respect its humble beginnings as an idea caught like a ping-pong ball in the mind of someone far more intelligent than I. It is another thing to enjoy your listen because the songs matter to you, not because of any hidden complexity requiring multiple listens in order to decode the album’s secret.

Yet, some songs drag the album down: “I Bear Witness,” a song with cunningly subtle melodic phrasing, acts like that guy at the party who reminds you every 10 minutes exactly what time it is, when you had just begun enjoying yourself. No amount of oohs and ahhs can redeem this track. But follow it up with “June Eyes” and the well of forgiveness runneth over.

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