When a frontman decides to make a record outside of his main gig, the first order of business is to justify its existence. This is particularly true in the case of Zach Rogue's stepping out as Release the Sunbird: though Rogue Wave grew from a solo project to a full-time band in a matter of months, I imagine a guy who sorta named the band after himself maintains as much songwriting autonomy as he wants. But upon holing up in a Bloomington, Ind., studio with a batch of unfinished songs after a grueling tour stint, you could assume that Rogue wanted to pump the brakes on a band that was getting bigger and not necessarily better. Of all the records from the past decade accurately likened to the Shins, Out of the Shadow and Descended Like Vultures are pretty much the only two that still hold up. But attempts to muscle up for amphitheaters (Asleep at Heaven's Gate) and dancefloors (Permalight) proved Rogue Wave's charming indie pop wasn't really scalable.
On the title track here, Rogue sings, "I'm already able to cut myself down if I need to," and Come Back to Us goes out of its way to be accommodating to those unconvinced by the direction Rogue had been taking. Described as a "solo project, yet not," it brings him back to the Out of the Shadow days where the bulk of the songs were just him and his guitar, occasional production touches applied after the fact. Opener "It's All Around You" is more of a purposeful mantra than song, the single titular lyric doubling seeping Farfisa (courtesy of the Wave's Pat Spurgeon) and surprisingly loud drums for an enveloping, you-are-there sound. Come Back to Us never rocks that hard again ("rocks" being relative), but the homey warmth is maintained through an au naturel recording where every scrape of fingernails on guitar strings, bounce of room echo, and imperfect harmony is kept intact. Even the more surprising studio touches-- a distorted percussive effect on "Come Back to Us", guiro, the unsettling reverb of "A New You"-- come off like natural found sound amidst rumpled folk-pop that doesn't sound composed so much as snuggled into wakefulness.
Yet for all of its dewy production and dog-eared melodies, Rogue's words themselves sag with the burden of addiction, death, and fatherhood: It sounds like early morning music for people who've been up all night struggling with something heavy. Though it's not addressed to anyone specific, "Always Like the Son" carries devastating weight, the passing of a brother or one's closest friend being used as a reflection for one's own personal shortcomings. "Why Can't You Look at Yourself" instantly recalls an unplugged version of Descended Like Vulture's "Bird on a Wire", but forgoes its lighter-waving to seek relief from the powerlessness of watching an alcoholic waste away. If not so much a sharp turn for Rogue sonically ("California" and "Christians in Black" come to my mind), it's unquestionably the most personal and direct he's ever been-- a lyric like "all this emotion, can't help myself" might read cloying, but it's the purest distillation of a record that thrives on straightforwardness and honesty.
But while Come Back to Us isn't Rogue's longest release, it's got the longest tracklist and it's a little too good at establishing mood: The cumulative effect of 12 straight ballads of misty eyes and resigned acceptance after "It's All Around You" saps the individual effect of each. Or maybe the most powerful of the songs all come in the first half, and as Come Back to Us pushes toward its disappointingly vague closer, "Outlook's Anonymous", Rogue's words get more terse and emotionally illegible without offering any compensation in volume or melody. Still, it's a shame that the songs on Come Back to Us weren't available to Rogue previously, since "A New You" or "Why Can't You Look at Yourself" could've certainly counterbalanced some of his more awkwardly ambitious moments of late. So even if it's a pointedly despondent record, it actually makes me hopeful that Rogue hasn't wholly lost touch with the humble charm of his best work.
