Some albums have to be played a few times before they're appreciated-- which is the polite way to say that, upon first listen, they sound unremarkable or even irritating. The latest release by Bloomington, Indiana's Brando, Single Crown Postcard, provoked immediate dislike that slowly grew into a genuine respect. This is a complicated album, straightforward in small doses but hard to interpret as a whole.
Start with the sound quality. Brando makes the most of their four-track recordings, but maybe the format shouldn't be pushed this far. Home taping can be kind to straight-up rock and solo bedroom confessional records, but Brando's arrangements are much more complicated: the band parts are tight and precise, with primary songwriter and performer Derek Richey layering lush sounds and synthesized string backdrops. Shoehorning all of this into a four-track can sound like taping music off the TV by holding a cassette recorder to the speaker: the result is weak and distant when you want to hear it soar.
And there's Richey's vocals. He's a good singer-- on key, confident and distinct-- but his high voice, which resembles David Sedaris', is an acquired taste. His delivery is so precise and his expression so unvaried that it's hard to tell where he's coming from: on the first track, "French Algiers," he's almost apologetic ("I've got more game than it appears," he assures us), but on other songs, he sounds more bold and assertive, bordering on snarky.
It's after a couple of listens that the strength and diversity of the songwriting comes through: Single Crown Postcard is a mess of classic pop styles. "Partisan" echoes whimsical late-60s Brit-pop, with its biting yet sing-song lyrics. "By and By" could have shown up on a Dusty Springfield album, and Richey forces some genuine soul out of his voice. Other songs borrow from more modern styles: the piano line on "Driving to My Desert" could have come off the soundtrack to a Hal Hartley film, and "The Great Unwind" cribs from every wistful indie pop song of the past ten years, maybe sounding a little more sincere than average when you detect some rare vulnerability in Richey's singing.
For as much as the songs are clean, solid pop, Single Crown Postcard combines them into a hard-to-fathom package: it shifts from somber to psychedelic, from the pining of "Two Views (Of Your Glass Gloves)" to the oompa-loompa gait and twinkly keyboards of "Two Years." A simpler album would be taken at face value, but Richey gives up so little of his intentions and opinions that he almost dares you to keep listening and digging in. I don't know what the hell he's really singing about, but it's starting to sound pretty interesting.
