Can a band that names its debut album Eulogies be taken at face value? The group must be playing their self-reflexive card out of the gate, starting at the end and working their way backwards, or otherwise signaling the poetic finish of something large, with a fresh start to boot, right? Not necessarily, especially if the band itself is named Eulogies. Bandleader Peter Walker's songs draw inspiration from the literal meaning of the term, dealing variously with despair and regret, and were crafted during a 2006 tour on which he opened for Starsailor; to his credit, Walker plays his songs much closer to the vest than his former tourmates. Eulogies simmers with emotion and brims with understated hooks, registering nearest the sensible introspection of Wheat's Hope and Adams, Nada Surf's The Weight is a Gift, or Death Cab for Cutie's Transatlanticism.
Not so much clenched teeth as effectively restrained power-pop passion, Eulogies' most expressive moments-- the chugging chorus of "Running in the Rain", the opening guitar fanfare from "Useless Amends", the temporarily wanky solo from "Life Boat"-- are quickly subsumed to calmer tones, most often in the form of shadowy electric guitar and Walker's whispery pleas. Matters are occasionally expanded, but at the lyrical level: "Under the Knife" elevates denial to universal proportions, questioning the impact of "Those who died for us to live/ On false foundations," before reaching a fulfilling, yet discreet, refrain. "Can't Relate" overcomes the occasional overwrought lyric ("We're all swimming in the bottles of our own accord") with one of the record's most effective productions, an organ-laced acoustic brood. Opener "One Man" has a muted, Ric Ocasek-style guitar line weaving throughout, and expands into a satisfying, but self-possessed chorus.
"If I Knew You" maps an apparent road to recovery, with Walker gently asking "If I knew you, would you do the same to me?", as if he's forced to simply start from interpersonal scratch and rebuild a "friendship," beginning with the basics: "Should I say goodbye again? Should I stick around?" The gentle, wordless falsetto climax-- the album's early peak, and something Walker would be well served to further explore in the future-- doesn't give many clues as to the outcome, but that's okay. At times like those Walker is working through, it's often best to avoid language altogether. The one Eulogies song that doesn't work, "Little Davie", fails because Walker steps outside of the first-person perspective, breaking the one-to-one atmosphere he'd effectively created to that point.
The encomia Walker delivers here, per the above RIYLs, succeed for the most part because he sends them off to the great beyond with a brand of sentimentality that resists drifting into weepy nostalgia or keening over-emotion. For anyone who's recently seen the demise of a once-flourishing partnership (ahem), Eulogies can be instructive as well: measured, well-crafted recollections are much more presentable (and, for that matter, less embarrassing) than expressions of unadulterated feeling.
