Suppose I started writing about a turtle crossing a hot, desert highway. Suppose I wrote in great and excruciating detail of the turtle's slow journey, describing each deliberate motion in real time as you read on in search of my thoughts on Lullaby for the Working Class' third album, Song. Maybe I'd slow continue on about the turtle's journey across the highway-- about how cars of varying makes and models (which I also would describe to you, along with the conditions of their paint jobs and their drivers) zoomed past it, you would eventually grow bored and tired, clicking over to the Pitchfork news page to find out once and for all whether or not Pavement actually broke up.
Now imagine sitting next to me on the bus. I'm telling you a story about my fourth birthday. A half an hour has passed and you've already learned of the grand party thrown for me by my parents. You've learned of the clown that scared children as clowns inevitably do, and of the large cake upon which "Happy Birthday, Neil" was written in icing. Now, if you're of right mind, you're shooting out the door at the next stop, or perhaps even jumping out the window as the bus slows for a turn.
In either of the above cases, you might notice the care with which I tell my story, recognizing certain beautiful episodes. You'd notice the sensitivity with which I wrote of the truck driver who swerves to hit the turtle, or the sublime beauty of a drunken clown's gift to a boy on the anniversary of the kid's birth. But in the end, you'd be bored. Neither of these tales are particularly compelling in and of themselves, and told slowly in terrible detail, they only become bogged in their own pointlessness. Lullaby for the Working Class' Song is the sound of that bogging.
About a year ago, I wrote on this website of Chris Whitley's guitar stylings, noting his incredible ability to elicit more sound out of a single guitar than many full bands can coax from their instruments. That statement holds true when talking about Lullaby. Eleven people play on the album's first track, "Expand, Contract," and after untold listening, all eleven fail to even dent my consciousness. Sure, the band's nearly symphonic arrangements are pretty, but here they function only to their own ineffective end. Without individually compelling songs to add support, the arrangements are details without a storyline.
Unfortunately, a reverse paradigm operates throughout the album. The songs seem to serve merely as skeletons for the band's arrangements, creating the ultimate irony of the album's title. A secondary irony exists in the album's structure, which both begins and ends with long droning buzzes that serve as the album's only attention- grabbing moments. But guys, why limit yourself to just the working class? The rich could sleep to this just as well.
