We may mock what we are to be, but it's far easier and much more fun to mock what we once were. That said, I take no shame in branding Maritime dainty, callow guitar pop for snuggly teenagers; that's the context in which I enjoyed lead singer Davey von Bohlen's work with The Promise Ring, even the lamentable Very Emergency. But if there's one thing I've learned from reviewing music, it's to take nothing for granted. In that respect, Maritime, the collaboration between von Bohlen, former Dismemberment Plan bassist Eric Axelson, and Promise Ring timekeeper Dan Didier is as legit a candidate as any for my approbation. In fact, I really wanted to like it, despite the bounty of reasons to suspect dreck. Perhaps, I thought, von Bohlen, in cahoots with the virtuosic Axelson, might have regained the edge he'd lost during his latter period with The Promise Ring, or finally stylized his affinity for bland power pop.
Unfortunately, Maritime doesn't vindicate my wishful thinking. If there's any difference between this album and von Bohlen's lackluster recent output, it's that this collection somehow manages to be even more tepid. However, the album does make a tempting come-on in its opening two tracks. "The Window Is the Door" reshapes Chris Carrabba's acousticized love balladry into something more genuine and infinitely less vomit-inducing, probably for von Bohlen's reluctance (or inability) to belt his mundane verses with an ardor disproportionate to their profundity. "Sleep Around" is a sleek exercise in nouveau piano pop, handling a potentially disastrous array of strings and horns with unexpected finesse. Featuring some of Glass Floor's strongest melodies and a fluid lyrical narrative, the song suffers only from von Bohlen's unashamedly lacking vocal cords.
By now, it's no secret: The man can't sing. Often enough in the past, von Bohlen's songwriting has outshone his prominent vocal ineptitude; it's when he attempts to make his tunelessness endearing that his songs become unbearable, and unfortunately, this is the case with most of Glass Floor.
There was a time, back in The Promise Ring's heyday, when great tracks like "Is This Thing On?" and "Why Did We Ever Meet?" were the standard, not mere anomalies. However, since 1999, von Bohlen has fixated on feeble contemporary pop, resulting in a string of effete, unduly flaccid albums whose occasionally winsome melodies have been asphyxiated by flat production and unenergetic performance. Here, tracks like the soporific lullaby "A Night Like This" are the norm, and as such, the album is an arduous slog. Pining love songs are notoriously difficult to execute, but one way to generate at least some intrigue is to avoid writing songs that actually sound like they're about pining love. A contrast between form and content can be helpful when dealing with particularly trite subject matter, and that doesn't apply exclusively to feckless lyricists like von Bohlen.
But perhaps the real disappointment of Glass Floor is that it tarnishes Eric Axelson's previously flawless reputation. After playing a starring role in The Dismemberment Plan, where his dexterous playing and effortless meter manipulation often buoyed the band's corybantic compositions, here, he's sadly mollified. Only on the closing track "Human Beings" is one of his lines even remotely distinguishable from von Bohlen's rhythmically staid guitar parts, and unsurprisingly, it makes for one of the record's few interesting moments.
Most albums are at least somewhat frontloaded, but when a record sports only two truly strong numbers, it's hard even to describe it as such. "The Window Is the Door" and "Sleep Around" are by far this album's highlights, not because they're exceedingly better than the rest of the material, but because Maritime's style of lukewarm guitar pop is so tedious by comparison. By song three, Glass Floor has already waned past its endurable limit, with nearly a dozen indolent tracks to go, and von Bohlen's cloying strains make it difficult even to use the disc as innocuous background music. There are far more appetizing things to stick in one's discman than Glass Floor, and I don't mean strictly CDs.
