Jimmy Eat World once sang, "Do you feel bad like I feel bad?" Nobody does. I don't. You don't. Desaparecidos co-songwriter and Statistics one-man-band Denver Dalley does. Words fail ("I'm dying to be living"). They fail early ("You could say we're changing formats" on opener "Final Broadcast"). They fail often ("Through our cell phones we shout"; "Who are you holding when you're sleeping next to me?"; "Ignorance was so blissful"). They fail spectacularly ("This distance is getting tough"), and best of all they're posted.
Jimmy Eat World once sang, "All I need is just to hear a song I know." Likewise, when Denver Dalley feels bad he sings songs about the way songs make kids feel rather than about firsthand feelings. On Statistics' sophomore LP, Often Lie, Denver Dalley feels like this: "Lately, songs don't sound the same/ As they did/ The verses sound written just for me/ And the chorus comes back/ Begging to be heard/ Over and over, again and again/ Over and over, again" and so and on. Now, I still hear "Rubber Ring" and think of Morrissey kindly, even if "The Hook" brought Blues Traveler back for another run around VH-1. But the snake has eaten its tail, folks: Singing about the power of song doesn't necessarily make a song powerful.
What makes a song powerful? Why, simple guitars that start quiet and grow loud, of course. On "Final Broadcast", "No Promises", "At the End", and "10/22", Dalley has those in spades-- in clubs too, check local listings! In addition to powerful this makes the songs emotional, which may be why Statistics sound like Sunny Day Real Estate and the aforementioned Jimmy Eat World (and the unmentioned Mineral Jealous Gloria Waxwing Theory). "A Foreword" jumps from Sunny Day's murky "In Circles" to Weezer's spirited "Suzanne". "Begging to Be Heard" has the chimey guitar lead thing from Smashing Pumpkins' "Today" or Statistics' "Grass Is Always Greener", but it doesn't get all distorted like-- wait, there it goes. The big echoey half-falsetto call/response chorus of "No Promises" kills in Omaha! Dramatic drum fill, wham pow boomshaka. Statistics aren't "emo", because that trip was all about honesty and Statistics Often Lie-- nice one.
Pitchfork's Rob Mitchum once wrote, "Get me Tamborello!" That was about another Desaparecidos co-songwriter. Well, Dalley does things himself. Along with shimmery synths, aimless IDM blips, beats, bleats and nauseating buzzes dot the productions-- particularly "By(e) Now" (almost as clever as last album's "Chairman of the Bored")-- like a post-Postal Service pox. Statistics' debut was heavy on messy experimental tracks, but now Dalley mostly focuses on the songs.
