No matter how heinous you consider the worst musical crimes of Elton John or Billy Joel, summery piano chords are nothing to be ashamed of. In the late 1990s, the first two Ben Folds Five albums made the world safe for piano men, at least until Folds' embrace of more sophisticated production techniques and alternately jokey/sappy subject matter had even some longtime fans battling to see who could care least. Folds' bittersweet piano-pop stylings are all over BC Camplight's sophomore album, Blink of a Nihilist, although they're incorporated into multi-part compositions with orchestral arrangements and honeyed harmonies that just as often invoke Brian Wilson. Guess which of the two names shows up in Camplight's press materials.
BC Camplight is Philadelphia-based twentysomething songwriter Brian Christinzio, who sings and plays almost everything on Blink of the Nihilist. Camplight has toured the UK with English twee-pop "country-disco" band the Boy Least Likely To, and like that group's enchanting The Best Party Ever, his 2005 full-length debut Hide, Run Away uses cheerful pop melodies as a front for darker preoccupations. Where its predecessor might blithely think of murder, Blink of a Nihilist achieves subtler and occasionally more rewarding contrasts. However, despite some elegant production touches and a few shimmering hooks, Camplight's latest lacks both Wilson's childlike innocence and Folds' shit-talking realism. Instead we get bludgeoned with enough rote quirkiness for a big-budget Wes Anderson knockoff.
Camplight's skill lies in the way he fills out his bright, twisting tunes and unusual, Burt Bacharach-esque chord progressions with arrangements that echo the grandeur of Pet Sounds. So Blink of a Nihilist's high point is finale "Scare Me Sweetly", even though its lyrics about being "in love with you/ and your little sister, too" compare unfavorably not just to Beck's Midnite Vultures sister act "Debra" but also Camplight's own mother-daughter variation on the theme, Hide, Run Away's "Emily's Dead to Me"; the bouncy drums, theremin-like synths, and lush strings set up a soaring chorus that's so "Wouldn't It Be Nice" it could be in a Sonic commercial. Feathery backing vocals from Stephanie Vernacchio are an asset here and on swaying, slower "Officer Down"; she keeps both songs from getting lost in their own eccentricities. Jaunty first single "Lord, I've Been on Fire" is as catchy as it is inscrutable, like a weird outtake from Ben Folds' first solo album.
Weird, yeah, but not as weird as its ending suggests. A maniacally cackling Christinzio declares, "Reeeeediculous", and this is where Blink of a Nihlist's quirks start to get cloying. There's also the one-minute sci-fi "Peter and the Wolf" waltz of "Werewolf Waltz", the brain-stabbing barbershop of "I've Got a Bad Cold", the Tropicália-style breeziness of "Soy Tonto!", and the meandering pipe-organ languor of "Grey Young Amelia". Turns out Christinzio has spent time in a mental institution, a fact that appears near the top in virtually every article about him. Of course, Wilson suffered from mental illness and became a "perfect pop" god, while the relatively sane Folds has slipped a bit out of critical favor lately. Blink of a Nihilist's high-gloss mania doesn't quite put Camplight in a league with either of them just yet.
