Ryan Monroe opens his debut album, A Painting of a Painting on Fire, with a scene that's likely familiar to anyone who grew up a music fan: In "Doritoys", a kid plays make-believe in his room, rocking out to his favorite song on the radio and presumably using a hairbrush for a microphone. He's obviously having a blast, but his mother isn't so into it: "He's going ballistic, scaring his sister/ Now I need this nonsense to end." It's an endearing tableau, a portrait of the artist as a young air drummer, but it has a slightly more intriguing implication for Monroe's album. As a day job, the Mississippi native is a multi-instrumentalist in Band of Horses, and "Doritoys" (Monroe is not very good with titles) suggests he understands changing from a sideman to a solo artist involves a great deal of pretending. He may have a big-name producer and a well-stocked studio, but Monroe seems to suspect that he hasn't progressed terribly far from that rambunctious kid driving his mother crazy.
There's something affably self-deprecating about that attitude, which lends A Painting of a Painting on Fire a breezier, easier-going feel than you might expect. Even when he gets real and sings about drug addicts and war, there's a tacit acknowledgement that he's never taking the enterprise too seriously. The album needs that. Monroe reportedly wrote hundreds of songs while backing Ben Bridwell (himself a sideman gone solo), but it wasn't until a recent break in touring that he booked a studio and hammered them out with producer Chris Testa (P!nk, Matchbox 20). A giddy sense of discovery permeates the music, as though the kid just got a studio for Christmas. Of course he played all the instruments. He's not going to share his toys.
Monroe isn't cribbing from his boss and making earnest indie rock anthems. Instead, he plays a hyperactive brand of 1970s rock, full of big, shiny melodies and eager riffs. Much like the character in "Doritoys", he is openly imitating his rock idols. "Any Way, Shape, or Deformity" quotes the filtered vocals directly from ELO; "Turning Over Leaves" scavenges a little bit of Schmilsson; and "On the Beach" bounces energetically along like early Cheap Trick. Monroe's enthusiasm for these old sounds is obvious: He understands what makes these artists fun, and uses the touchstones to instill Painting with a percolating energy that doesn't wind down until well into side two.
Still, you can hear the strain. Monroe arranges the songs to sound impressively busy, with every single space filled with a fuzzed-out guitar, a vocoded refrain, or a vintage synthesizer. At times it plays like a multi-instrumentalist's demo reel, intended to showcase the range and variety of his talents. There's a fairly unadventurous sense of adventure to his borrowings, which highlights instead of compensates for his everyman vocals and truncated hooks. To say that Monroe isn't treading new ground, however, might be missing the point. If emulation is his aim, then his aim is true enough. And there's nothing wrong with patterning yourself after your heroes or singing into a hairbrush. But with so many other artists mining similar veins of influence-- Kelley Stoltz, Cardinal, Apex Manor, and even the gloriously shameless Fun.-- Monroe needs more than simple exuberance to distinguish himself.
