Well, my goodness, what a transcendent little album. First, the thing transcends its clunky name. Then it transcends its "for girls"-ness. Whuh-oh: By that I mean, well... you know what I mean. The way Yoshimi was "for girls." And Jeff Buckley. Still good and all, just "for girls." That's no diss of lassitude-- in fact, the gender-reference is unfortunate; I was taught (by a girl! whew) that the phrase denotes a semi-precious, self-conscious quality, what proclaimed tuff-girls mean when they announce that they are dressed "girly."
Compare Leo DiCaprio's eyes when he was a serious young actor with the twinkle-googly eyes of Titanic and the rest, in which he is "for girls." Think of the way Conor Oberst poses for pictures, or performs, or does anything except Desaparecidos. And don't act like your scene lacks a contingent of people barely into music, who instead relish, as is their right in this freest of countries, a band's "hotness" or "cuteness." At some points on this debut, Summer at Shatter Creek is a Jeff Mangum "for girls," especially when songs bust into pageantry/fanfare with the piano-led lonesome cuddliness of march music deprived of its procession.
And you know what "F.G." film director Summer at Shatter Creek sounds made tailor made for? Wes Anderson. Almost any song on Summer at Shatter Creek could slouch ethereally (however one does that) beside Elliott Smith and Emitt Rhodes on the soundtrack to the upcoming prequel Episode 1: Look Who's Tenenbauming. And dig the album cover's ornate frame of little-kid-type art: a perfect match for Anderson's fetishistic artifice-avalanches under which mature children and immature adults confound each other. Very "F.G."
By the way, Summer at Shatter Creek is one guy: a Craig Michael Gurwich out of Kalamazoo, Michigan. And you know what else he transcends? That one-guy-band thing. But watch out, Gurwich, because you come very, very close to owing royalties to Dump, the solo project of Yo La Tengo's James McNew, whom you kind of sing like, but sometimes better, and produce like (when Dump is produced) and who also adorns his albums with homegrown "F.G." toddler-kitsch a notch beneath Hello Kitty. Another neverlander to whom Gurwich is similar, in terms of tempo, guitar tone, layered elf-vox, and fractured Beatlesiana is: Tobin Sprout.
But Gurwich can't be stopped: He's on a rampage of transcendence! Because he also transcends that one-guy-band-that-sounds-like-a-huge-band thing. He's one of the best blends of lo-fi loner and Phil Spector aural huzzahdom I've ever heard. He's a bedroom Bacharach like Badly Drawn Boy, creating songs that trigger decades of pop reference points-- he's Edward Erahands. "The Essence of Time" asks what if Pet Sounds was a more psychedelic collaboration between Skip Spence and a Jan & Dean trapped in the phantom zone, burning incense blended with Elephant 6 ashes. "The Drive" is a drumless Zombies' "Time of the Season" if it were sung by cute zombies. In fact, much of the album suggests a otherworldly and eerie, but cute, Goodwill in which an otherworldly and eerie, but cute, oldies station is being played.
Of course, some of the album's just prime indie rock, albeit on the mellow tip. The coed dreampop of "I Don't Even Miss You" conjures "for girls" classics by Slumberland bands Rocketship and Nord Express. And speaking of slumberland, the disc tellingly thumbs it nose at Wilco and Hayden and other such indulgers by boasting the obligatory lullaby ("Go to Sleep") as its fourth song. The juh-hamm of "Home for the Holidays" is a collision of squeaky-cleanery and Thom Yorke's morbid wail-- imagine a Disney sitcom called Radiohead Meets World.
Still more transcendence! The album's best song ("My Neighbor's Having a Seizure") transcends both the ailment-song and concerned-neighbor-song subgenres, trotting on the victory lap alongside Suzanne Vega's "Luka", Dogbowl's "Growing Up in a Wheelchair", Joy Division's "She's Lost Control", and sometimes Metallica's "One". This track best capitalizes on the album's ethic of transmogrification; most of the tunes burp or blossom into expansive second acts, but when "My Neighbor's Having a Seizure" does it-- yeeeow. Gurwich goes from sounding like a detached artiste to belting out an ode to symbiotic suffering that reveals, via foil, the vulnerability of its speaker.
Insipid lyrics (example: "When someone makes you feel like you are just shit/ They are not a friend") and too-long buildups keep the album from galloping into the promised pastures of Eight Point Five Plus, but Summer at Shatter Creek's elegant horses can practically smell that realm's hallowed poop. I predict a long shelflife for this record, but mang, there's so much other stuff on that shelf to choose from...
