In the age of computerized music-listening, calling an album "too long"-- a dubious complaint even two decades ago, when CDs first made track-skipping simpler-- seems absurdly outdated. After all, it's easy enough to make an iTunes playlist of a record's best songs, right? So I don't get it when people call Devendra Banhart's albums too long. Not only is that problem easy to rectify, but his rambling style needs room to breathe, and space to wander toward its inspirations. Banhart's valleys have rarely diminished his peaks, and often provided ramps to them.
But after spending time with the 16-track, 66-minute Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon, I'm starting to understand. It's not so much that the quality varies, but that a bloated, lethargic feel permeates the record. Banhart has too much skill and creativity not to hit on something good when given 16 chances to do so. But in the context of the album, even the best pieces sag, bathed in a blurry haze that bleeds over from other songs. And it's hard to shake the feeling that the highlights would've been brighter given the extra time and attention they were deprived of by the lows.
The easiest fix would have been for Banhart to restrict his tiresome love of genres. This cloying infatuation pops up on all of his albums, but he usually keeps it to a minimum, and often tweaks the clichés of the styles he apes. But more than one-third of Smokey consists of indistinct genre exercises. There's a flat Samba piece ("Samba Vexillographica"), a middling Reggae jaunt ("The Other Woman"), a weak Motown rip ("Lover"), and a sub-Santana Spanish rocker ("Carmencita"). Worst of all is "Shabop Shalom", a Jewish love song done in doo-wop style and filled with painful couplets ("When I'm ever in a foul mood/ I've gotta see you in your Talmud"). Banhart labors to distinguish these tunes with his stellar voice, but they remain stubbornly forgettable. Only "Seahorse", a classic-rock epic that's sort of Banhart's "Layla", rises far above mimicry, but even it doesn't make any moves that you can't see coming.
Smokey does have a handful of songs that capture Banhart's idiosyncratic mix of odd folk and warbling emotion. For the most part, this happens when he keeps things simple: Opener "Cristobal" is a modest tune with a worm-like melody, while "Tonada Yanomaminista" is energetic and sharp, practically caffeinated compared to the sluggishness around it. Even better is "Bad Girl", whose gentleness is hypnotic rather than sleepy, much the way the slower shuffles on Stephen Malkmus' solo albums find tension in patient strolls. Over small slide guitar and pitter-pat percussion, Banhart's tale of romantic ambivalence is achingly pretty.
Similar simplicity bolsters the album's end. The Gordon Lightfoot-esque soft rocker "Freely" benefits from a nice Banhart vocal turn, while the wistful piano and voice of "I Remember" feels like an update of "Autumn's Child" from 2004's Rejoicing in the Hands. Best is the final cut, "My Dearest Friend." As Banhart bemoans how he will "die from loneliness," the track does the opposite, gaining strength from its unadorned setting and lack of heavy effects, indulgent flourishes, or winking genre baggage. It's a strong way to close Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon, but an even stronger reminder of how much better Banhart can be.
