Nonchalance can be brash. Across three albums in the late 2000s, Vivian Girls' mix of girl-group sweetness, punk brusqueness, and proto-grunge sludge won them an adoring cult, but it also left the Brooklyn-via-New Jersey band exposed to criticism from the not-so-silent majority this excluded. As her bandmates have gone on to other projects, Ramone (born Cassie Grzymkowski) has continued to evince a dedicated dispassion. Kickball Katy, the bass player, has stepped to the front over three increasingly confident albums with the melancholic, day-dreamy La Sera. Ali Koehler, the drummer, has also taken over the mic for the intrepid fuzz blasters of Upset. Founding Vivian Girls drummer Frankie Rose graduated into the richly colored synth-pop epitomized by 2012's outstanding Interstellar. Ramone, by contrast, avoided center stage, splitting lead vocal duties with Woods bassist Kevin Morby on a pair of casually scuffed LPs with the Babies.
The Time Has Come is Ramone's solo debut, thrusting her conversational voice and lyricism back to the spotlight, but in effect it's another intimate-yet-aloof sidestep. Rather than charge ahead with the gig-ready urgency of Vivian Girls or space out on details like Rose's Interstellar, she has turned in relatively stripped-down album of songs she recorded herself at apartments in New York and Los Angeles. What the time has come for, Ramone murmurs listlessly on the title track, brings to mind the eccentric emoting of Blur guitarist Graham Coxon's early solo output—that is, saying "I love you." Those aren't always words you want more than certain people to hear.
As with most of Ramone's work, there's an admirable lack of apparent affectation across the album, which should help make it welcome in all places predisposed to love—or even just like—her back. Reverb-soaked and shambolic, with the occasional tambourine or fluid guitar solo, the songs address dark days ("Song of Love"), troubled romance ("Hangin On"), and enduring affection ("I Send My Love to You"). Despite the low-key recording setup, flourishes here or there break up the potential monotony, as when the nocturnal acoustic gallop of "I Don't Really Wanna Go" goes off into psyched-out lava-lamp burbles. Even when Ramone tends toward the tender-hearted melodies of great '90s indie-pop duo the Softies on "Sensitive Soul", she stays deadpan enough to allay the twee-allergic.
Lo-fi bedroom pop prophet Ariel Pink guests on bass for almost every song, but his presence is understated. T**he Time Has Come's press materials cite '60s Greenwich Village enigma Karen Dalton, and though the title has been used many times, one notable instance is English folkie Anne Briggs' breakout 1971 album. The grassroots movement where Ramone's effort would fit best is '90s indie culture, right down to the handwritten look of the cover text and the doodles on the record's inner label.
Part of that culture, of course, was the idea of the slacker. Ramone flirts most directly with that image on "I'm a Freak", where she flatly insists that she's "a fucking loser," "a bad egg just ready to crack, hey-hey." At times, particularly on the dirge-like "Joe's Song", she comes across instead like someone who likes her perfectly good eggs a bit undercooked. This is the paradox in which Ramone finds herself: her allure is partly her insular don't-give-a-fuckness, but that can only get her so far. It's hard to say whether she would benefit from the more generous approach to do-it-yourself recording seen on Karen O's "Rapt" or even Out Hud member Molly Shnick's self-titled Jean on Jean album several years back; she's not them. This much is clear: The Time Has Come is two songs shorter and about the same number of minutes longer than the Vivian Girls' 2008 debut album, and yet it's ultimately a bit slight. The songs are still nonchalant, still brash, but the time for Ramone's next nonchalantly brash big statement may be still to come.
