Former Pavement guitarist/vocalist Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg’s solo career has doubled as an ongoing battle for self-definition—a quest to find space for himself in the firmament of American indie rock. Results have varied. There were guest spots on Kevin Drew and Broken Social Scene LPs. There was his label Amazing Grease Records, home to San Francisco’s late, great Oranger. Then there was the trio he helmed, Preston School of Industry. At its most memorable, Preston doubled down on the wilder-card songwriting role Kannberg played during Pavement’s decade-long, indie-rock reign (the spazzy, elastic “The Spaces in Between”) or probed fuzzed-out, country-fried drift (the downbeat “Whalebones”). Too often, though, the music floated by, not leaving behind much of an impression. With 2009’s The Real Feel—his first LP as Spiral Stairs—he gear-shifted, leaning convincingly and promisingly into folk, blues, and the Clean. Then, without warning, Kannberg effectively went silent.
Eight years later, Doris and the Daggers cracks the equation. His voice deeper and his aim truer, Kannberg is at his most confident and mellow here. Backed by members of the National, Broken Social Scene, Oranger, and singer/songwriter Kelley Stoltz, the album patiently navigates middle age’s ups and downs, setting aside sprawl and fantasia aside to focus on succinctness and autobiography. The players lend a patient, casual calm to proceedings mid-tempo, sober, and pedal-steel soaked; these are indie-rock lite tunes playing a long game, in no rush to peak, freak, or wipe out.
With “The Unconditional,” an ode to a growing daughter, Kannberg capitalizes on the song’s elastic nest of guitars, horns, and organs, stretching and savoring each verse. You can feel him fully inhabit this song in a way he never has before; when he confides that the “little girl’s getting older/she’s not telling me what to do,” the prevailing emotion is a rueful sense of wonder. Needled with riffs and horn squibs, “Dance (Cry Wolf)” locates its swing and bounce in lonesomeness. “AWM” might be the most chipper, hummable divorce song this decade; its violins and pianos smartly deployed, its vocal outro more reflective than bitter. Less affecting is the goofy golf-trip remembrance “Dundee Man” featuring a synthesizer line part of a wan, jangling whole. Though the album’s stakes may not be very high at all, it’s nice to hear Kannberg’s increasing facility for arrangements.
This isn’t a record you crank in traffic en route to an across-town meeting; it’s a record to unwind with later that night on your second glass of Syrah—a sturdy shrug to cap off the day. Throughout Doris, a very tricky balancing act is at work: the maintenance of a rangey, ragged looseness, without any sense of over-rehearsal. That Kannberg and company are able to sustain this standard throughout—even for synth-funk wonder “No Comparison” and the chanted, semi-punk head rush of “Doris and the Daggers”—is a small triumph.
