Part of me hates this time of year. I gave up on organized religion a long time ago, so Christmas basically seems like just a big, over-commercialized holiday designed to deplete your savings and raise your blood pressure in the process. I mean, I love the light displays and seeing my family and all that, but there's something about the period between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day that just feels incredibly empty to me. But beyond that, I think what I hate is the darkness.
Being on Daylight Savings Time here in New England means that the sun goes down around 4:00 p.m., and it drives me crazy. Walking back from class at 6:00 with a stiff, cold wind in my face and the sun nowhere to be seen, it's easy to see why bears hibernate during the winter-- it's probably the best way to cope emotionally with the winter months. So into this mindset enter the Lilac Time's sixth album, the second since their reunion in 1998. The Lilacs' last album, 1999's aptly titled Looking for a Day in the Night, fit this time of year for me fairly well. It was a well-constructed folk record full of mournful music and mostly hopeful lyrical themes, and it radiated a kind of sorrowful warmth that made me forget what time of year it was. But if that album found them looking for the day, then it's fair to say that Lilac6 shows them finding it.
The thematic change is immediately apparent from the title of the first song, "Dance Out of the Shadows." The Lilac Time ride out into the light on richly strummed acoustics, with head Lilac Stephen Duffy singing about middle age and the necessary lifestyle changes that come with the territory. "This Morning" follows, and makes it readily apparent that the thematic shift isn't the only one present. Lilac6 is a much more musically upbeat album as well, and features a crop of enjoyable, summery pop songs that are hard to argue with in the middle of winter.
"This Morning" sports a fluid, Motown-inspired bassline and dueling slide guitar and pedal steel lines. Second vocalist Claire Worrall is more prominent on this record than she was on the last one, handling the chorus beautifully and harmonizing seamlessly with Duffy. More obviously summer-themed is the excellent "Jeans and Summer," a rocking little tune that nods to "Louie Louie" in the chorus before slipping into the catchy verse melody. The backing vocals and jangling guitars recall early REM, while the vocal round of exuberant "bah-bah's" that end the song evoke pre-Pet Sounds Beach Boys.
Other uptempo songs lean away from sway back into the moody territory that the band plies so well, like "Entourage," with its subtle French accordion accompanying lines like, "I only love you when I'm drunk/ I'm alcoholic," and, "I'm through with morality/ Can I sleep with your wife?" Perhaps the band's greatest mood enhancer is the pedal steel of Melvin Duffy (no relation to brothers Nick and Stephen). His craft on the instrument is highly developed, and he's able to slip it into any context the band creates for him seamlessly. Sometimes, his playing has the country-ish quality the instrument is known for ("My Forest Brown," for instance), but for the most part, he manages to subvert the steel's stereotypical sound with richly melodic playing.
His steel guitar holds a playful dialogue with Duffy and Worrall's harmonies on "I Want to Be Your Man," a gently loping song stuffed full of finger-picked guitars and restrained percussion. The song gives way to one of the album's two Nick Duffy instrumentals, the rhythmic, darkly lyrical "Jupe Longue." Interlocking guitars swirl like flamenco dancers over dark accordion and organ chords, and the result is a strangely carnival-esque song. Unfortunately, the other instrumental, album closer "June's Buffalo," isn't as engaging, plowing over urgently strummed acoustic guitar with an ugly accordion tone and a cheap, vaguely Caribbean rhythm. The steel drum sound at the conclusion may or may not be real, but it hardly matters, because the average listener will be working so hard to tune out what they're hearing that they won't notice one way or the other.
It's too bad the album ends on such a negative note, because what precedes that is mostly engaging folk-rock that somehow manages a much broader appeal than most folk recordings. Part of this broad appeal lies in the fact that Stephen Duffy is a pop musician at heart-- an original member of Duran Duran (he left before they got big) and the man responsible for the mid-80s synth-pop smash "Kiss Me" as Tin Tin. Here, he's managed to take both of his tendencies and write a batch of songs that sit nicely somewhere between the two extremes.
It makes for a record that sometimes feels a little too much like its head is in two different places, but ultimately, it holds together well. The overall result is an album that warms the spirit and takes some of the bite out the chill outside for forty-five minutes. And at this time of year, I could hardly ask for anything more.
