Many critics, including my managing editor, lamented the newfound lachrymosity of The Lucksmiths' most recent full-length, Naturaliste. But to me, that album's bittersweet tenor (abetted by lead vocalist Tali White's literal one) marked a deepening of emotional range for an Australian outfit that always had a knack for sunny school's-out-for-summer melodies and idyllic Kinks guitar licks but often seemed, well, silly. New, unhurried ballads like "Sandringham Line" were growers, but they were also grown-up, and Naturaliste ended up topping my 2003 best-of list.
Inner North, White's second outing with side project The Guild League, is more melancholy still (some will say maudlin), but sadder isn't better this time, sadly enough. The first Guild League effort, 2002's Private Transport, reflected the talents of a 16-member outfit including members of such indie-pop groups as The Fairways, The Aislers Set, and Sodastream, recording on both sides of the Pacific. The album's playful travelogue conceit and manifold styles were in keeping with its far-flung creation.
The same jangly acoustic guitars, sinuous cello and brazen bursts of horns that enlivened Private Transport remain on Inner North, as do White's clear, Aussie-next-door vocals, which occupy a gorgeous middle ground between Morrissey and Nick Drake. But now the group is down to a core trio of White, guitarist Rodrigo Pintos-Lopez and cellist Cressida Griffiths, all Australian, and I can't shake the feeling they're trying too hard to make up for what White might call the quiet burden of their bandmates' absence. Even White goes overboard like a deep-sea diver, the endlessly melismatic "please" in dismal melodrama "Time Please Gents" marking his nadir.
It's worth remembering that The Guild League began as a vehicle for White's songwriting. Though he sings for The Lucksmiths, the compositions are rarely his (effortlessly elegiac "What You'll Miss" being a notable exception). But where the best songs on Private Transport, such as "Cornflakes" or "The Neatest Hand", boast bouncy melodies and lyrics that find poetry in love's subtle everyday quirks-- "sugar on cereal," "mixtapes with careful print"-- Inner North stems from the previous record's soporific "Dangerous Safety" (dangerous for late-night drivers, heavy-machine operators and sleep-deprived rock writers, that is). That little dirge marked White and co-writer Pintos-Lopez's first songwriting collaboration and-- oh frabjous day-- they've decided to write the entire new album together.
There's still a lot to like about Inner North, particularly the familiar Lucksmithian wordplay ("into the morning of last night") and scattered instants of exuberance ("The Storm", the strongest song on the album). "Scientist" toes the line between schmaltz and true romance nearly as well as Private Transport's finest songs. "Shot in the Arm" has the punch of early Lucksmiths and the rapid-fire lyrics of The Guild League's earlier "Siamese Couplets". Even "Animals", "Citronella", and the quietly insistent, love-it-or-hate-it "Trust" provide some charming moments. But worshipers of White's other works would do well to take his lyric from "Fingers of Sun" as a characteristically quiet caveat: "It's all coming undone." Please, please, please don't quit your day job.
