After a decade-long career and five albums, Rufus Wainwright's best work is still ahead of him. His heritage implies this; much like his father Loudon and his mother, Kate McGarrigle-- as well as spiritual contemporaries ranging from Randy Newman to Van Morrison-- Wainwright is cut from the cloth of songwriter for whom youth isn't an essential component of creativity. A quick scan through Wainwright's discography reveals he often falters when he self-consciously asserts his age. Whether in occasionally cringeworthy attempts to massage fragments of popular culture into his comi-tragedies (see 2003's "Vibrate", on which he crooned "My phone's on vibrate for you") or his increasing propensity for folding rock music into his otherwise anachronistic cabaret pop, Wainwright generally works best when he's trying to be outside of his time, not of it.
Continuing in the tradition of 2003/04's double-shot of Want One and Want Two, Release the Stars finds Wainwright flitting between opposite poles-- lovestruck and glib, opulent and gimmicky, overblown and undercooked-- with rumpled uncertainty. To be fair, it doesn't take much to locate the source of his wanderings; unlike most new artists, Wainwright came out of the gate with an incredibly assured aesthetic. Both his 1998 self-titled debut and his 2001 follow-up Poses were remarkably developed records-- the former establishing his way with a wending, operatic arrangement; the latter proving his songs nicely amenable to tidy flourishes of 70s AOR. Since then, whether out of boredom, excitement, or desire for the mainstream acceptance he's so frequently pined for, Wainwright's expanded his sound, tempering his natural inclination towards opulence with different song styles and textures, always with mixed results.
A theatre buff, Wainwright has always known the value of a good opener, and Release the Stars is no exception. "Why does it always have to be fire and brimstone?" he wonders in the explosive curtain-raiser "Do I Disappoint You", which itself sounds a bit like five orchestras playing out the second coming. That's followed by first single "Going to a Town", which balances simple piano chords against a uncommonly pointed lyric: "I'm going to a town that has already been burnt down/ I'm going to a place that has already been disgraced/ I'm gonna see some folks who have already been let down/ I'm so tired of America." With all kinds of satisfying variations and twists on the main melody, it's the rare political song that actually hits its mark, and is easily the album's highlight.
As is often the case, Wainwright's ballads account for a disproportionate amount of the standout moments. With its gentle turns of phrase and slow string arrangements, "Nobody's Off the Hook" recalls what still might be his finest single song, 2001's "Poses". Elsewhere, "Leaving For Paris No. 2" finds Wainwright at his most lovelorn, wrenching a meandering ballad out of a churning piano motif.
As he's always been better about writing about romance than sex, there are some clunkers to contend with as well. None of are more forgettable than the tepid bar-room rock of "Between My Legs", in which a small army of lite rock guitar peels soundtrack Wainwright "shedding a tear" you know where. Meanwhile, allegedly based on Wainwright's one-night stand with the Killers' Brandon Flowers, "Tulsa" opens with a killer jab ("You taste of potato chips in the morning/ Your face has the Marlon Brando club calling") and descends into self-aware pointlessness. Even worse is "Slideshow", a six-minute epic that rests on a ludicrously overwrought refrain: "And I better be prominently featured in your next slideshow."
Such frequent attempts to elevate the banal into the meaningful ultimately keep Release the Stars from achieving any significant momentum and only add weight to the notion that Wainwright's shaky aim-- rather than his lack of talent-- might be his biggest downfall. Nonetheless, it's hard to take away from what he's already accomplished. At only 33, he's quietly amassed a body of work, the best of which rivals most of his singer/songwriter contemporaries. If we do ever get that masterpiece, it'll be straight icing.
