Slightly Sorry is far less fragile than The Well of Memory, the previous record from P.G. Six (aka Patrick Gubler)-- it features fewer nods to British luminaries like Bert Jansch, fuller instrumentation, and more MOR country-rock. This isn't a bad thing, and it's often very pretty, but it's hardly something you'd guess was the work of a former member of a seminal noise outfit like Tower Recordings. There's less of the experimental folk or abstract interludes that marked his earlier work, and it's great to hear Gubler exploring a more accessible, less deliberately obscure route. His songwriting has become more pop-minded, providing a better platform for lyrics and melody. This should be a good thing-- if only those lyrics had something to say. Working within a genre doesn't mean the lyrics have to be tired and cliché, yet the disc's first big hook, "The Dance", has a clunker of a chorus: "But I wonder if you dance/ Are your eyes fixed on each other in romance/ I'm not askin' for another chance." Garth Brooks did this song better like 18 years ago.
Gubler's voice is hushed, and he has difficulty with compositions that spotlight the words and singing (note whatever he "must bear-ahair-hare" on "The Dance"), but he often calls in background vocalists to bolster him, and sometimes even hands songs over to other performers, as he does with Helen Rush on "The End of Winter". We can talk growth and full-band arrangements all day, but hearing Rush's placid, assured voice come in after a full minute of unhurried acoustic plucking might be the record's one true goosebump-raising moment.
Coming immediately after that, "I've Been Traveling" is a real surprise, a jangly Byrdsian overdose with some more lazy lyrics ("daydreaming about your wine-stained lips," and "maybe someday when things ease up I'll be making my way to you"). It seems like a palette-cleansing moment, and it's a testament to the disc's diversity but not much else. "Bless These Blues" is another stretch for Gubler with a sunny melody and an organ that lurches like a water-logged duck, but the sentiment on this one-- "Bless these blues that I'm feeling... I was going through the motions/ Now at last I am awake"-- scratches at something deeper.
Jeffery Cain cover "Not I the Seed" weds more straightforward strumming with washes of guitar, pedal steel, and other other incidental noise, and here Gubler finds a middle-ground between experimentation and songcraft that the record could use more of. "Lily of the West" is a quiet acoustic, straight-ahead run through of a traditional folk song, but again, this is contrasted with the faux-soul Hammond-driven "Sweet Music", a complete 180 from what came before. Maybe it's just a muddled track list that makes Slightly Sorry seem inconsistent. It's not the bolder instrumentation that does it, and it's not the guests on the record, either. It's hearing Gubler try his hand in new contexts, while still hearing the old ones in which his whisper worked so well, that's the most frustrating.
