At least with most bands working from the ground up, you'd be getting something weird. Unlistenable, maybe, but still weird enough to justify its small niche-audience release. Putting something so benign as Sean Na Na's latest, however, on an independent label like Dim Mak just strikes me as lazy, but singer/songwriter Sean Tillmann (Har Mar Superstar) needs an outlet for every persona-- even the bland ones. The most subversive band Sean Na Na recall on Family Trees is the goddamn Shins. From the squeaky clean guitar lead to its superfluous baby-mobile keyboards and Tillmann's sudden over-reaching yelp, opener "We've Been Here Before" uncannily recalls James Mercer & co. (that cover isn't helping), but marching in a midtempo lock-step rhythm where the Shins would have reached for something with an ounce of color or personality.
But whether they're clutching at someone else's coattails isn't the problem. If these songs were played by a four-piece guitar/drums/bass, some multi-instrumental indie band with a baseball-team roster, a midi orchestra, or a klezmer ensemble, they'd still be duller than a golf pencil simply because they aspire to so little. Tillmann's reaching on the opening track is about as exciting as it gets; on "Don't Look Me Sideways", he sounds like a understudy for a barbershop quartet, singing softly in his apartment so as not to wake the neighbors while the band putters away in the kitchen. Whatever aesthetic they're going for here-- 1970s power pop, 80s college-rock, or maybe more just 90s rootsy innocuousness (wither the Counting Crows and, alas, Fastball)-- it sounds muddled, indecisive, and limp. I can barely recall another band playing it so annoyingly safe.
But the singer's voice is operatic compared to the range of his actual band. After the first half of this record, I wanted something, anything, to expand beyond their dorm-room pick-up band skiffle. Then I heard the leaden face-plant attempt to rock out with "The Hunter", and the first half didn't seem so bad after all. As a matter of fact, "Fold, Hit, or Stand" conjures up a vague country-influence with the twang of a staccato guitar line and barroom piano. The lyrics, too, nearly elevate this power-pap to something stirring. They're often dark and introspective against the otherwise perky backdrops, populated by characters like the burnouts of "Don't Look Me Sideways", or the stressed baby daddy in "Fold, Hit, or Stand", or the jilted lover/voyeur in "Can't Get a Spark". Dark lyrics on top of happy music is a gimmick older than radio, and unfortunately, it's about the only thing Family Trees has going for it.
