Mat Brooke and Jenn Ghetto, the creative force behind Carissa's Wierd, have spent the past several years soundtracking the indie community's collective misery, gradually gaining accolades in their Seattle home for wistful, at times devastating, tales of loss and dejection before unexpectedly dissolving the band in late 2003. Their slow, rueful country-tinged indie rock sound hasn't changed much during their short-lived recording career-- but the world certainly has, and an increasingly popular tendency to curl into a foetal ball and wallow in self-pity makes their music seem more timely and palatable. I Before E, a piecemeal album consisting of three new Carissa's tracks and a live performance, is fittingly jumbled and confused, and frequently moving.
The new tracks are among the most intricate songs the band has composed. The dirge-paced "Phantom Fireworks" crawls out of the gate, stumbling along with a simple, repeating guitar figure supporting Brooke's breathy vocals. Gradually, stark slide guitar and viola accompaniment emerge from the track's shadows, building until the song's group chorus. "Die" is the album's strongest track, and one of the best songs Carissa's Wierd has recorded. The song's liveliness conceals its melancholic directness ("Die/ Die/ I want to die"), and its flexible shifting between earnest piano ballad and upbeat pop suggests a newfound complexity in composition.
The relatively straightforward ballad "Blue Champagne Glass" is more characteristic of the band's earlier material, and it acts as a nice transition into the live material. The remaining tracks document the band's final performances at Seattle's Crocodile Cafe, using songs from earlier albums (which are scheduled for wider re-release later this year). The performance is solid and well received, putting the band's characteristic despondency in a context that studio albums have never provided. There is discernible warmth in these tracks, and the appreciative audience helps underscore the tenderness so often overshadowed by their recorded material's relative starkness.
Though the live tracks are an excellent gift to the group's fans, it's a shame that the songs are much simpler than the new studio material. Carissa's Wierd's sound had room for maturation and experimentation, and there's something somewhat unsatisfying about the album's lack of cohesion-- even if a certain disjointedness should be expected given the project's limitations. Still, the muted orchestral swell of "Drunk with the Only Saints I Know", bittersweet string melody of "Bathtile Green", and subtle drive of closer "Fluorescent Light" are excellent reminders of the band's abililty to balance an outward dreariness with great melodies and inspired songwriting. I Before E is scattered but ultimately rewarding, largely depressing with the slightest hints of optimism shining through a bleak exterior-- and an appropriately poignant swan song.
