The Henry Clay People's Joey Siara's a bit of a talk-singer, and spends some time on his third LP, Somewhere on the Golden Coast, pontificating on "the scene." His band combines the kind of no-nonsense bar rock of the Stones and the Replacements with the easygoing left coast blur of Weezer and Pavement. If, over the course of their three LPs, people have been trying to peg Los Angeles' The Henry Clay People as a sort of California Hold Steady, it's understandable. Siara's got a certain way with the pen; his wit can be sly, slightly acerbic, his delivery conversational, his phrasing often clever, his rare joke funny. But, bound together in song, all that can feel like a bit of a jumble; his travelogues and character sketches lack a certain attention to detail and too rarely cohere into much beyond quips and overstatements. It comes off not like Finn's tableau-settlng scene reports, but rather the fake Craig Finn lyrics Twitter: fitfully clever, admirable in their intent, but not quite the real deal.
"We were working part time all the time," the leadoff phrase of Golden Coast's best tune, is a nimble enough turn-of-phrase; "I was fine; I was broke but still alive, I was fine," from the chorus, isn't. And there's no shortage of these gradiose catch-alls that don't stand up to much inspection: "You can't fake the fireworks / you remember how your fire works," or the especially dire "Dreaming, it was just one part of your rock'n'roll heart." He's sharp enough to largely avoid cliche-- last few quoted lines notwithstanding-- but he's still quick to pen a scene without providing the requisite details, to throw in a few characters with giving them much in the way of motivation. A line here or there stands out, but Siara seems to have trouble getting much going at the verse level, and many of Golden Coast's songs play themselves out without sticking.
It doesn't help matters that the People are a competent but not particularly distinguished musical unit; their garage rock bluster and more straightahead, sunny guitar pop gives Siara's lyrics more than enough room, but it all manages to feel fairly interchangeable (and certainly derivative) over the course of these songs. And Siara's voice, always a tad strained-sounding, simply isn't as expressive as these lyrics could stand; one gets the feeling some of these lines might work out a little better were he a little more dexterous in shouting them out. Really, though, it's the words themselves that don't convey a distinct personality or cohere into their intended portraiture; at best, Siara manages snapshots. Golden Coast's unimaginative sonics and Siara's spotty penmanship keep the record from reaching the heights of its obvious influences-- an okay listen, but a desultory reminder of better records.
