So is the beer bottle half-empty or half-full? If you're one of those crazy optimists who went for the latter, boy, do the Lucksmiths have an album for you. Where Were We? foams with the effervescence of summer, yet it's lightly soured with the melancholy of slipping into autumn. The lads get girls and lose them; they have a pleasant evening at the pub, but the local football team loses a match. It's an album-- hey, a life-- of light highs and okay lows. And did I mention that the weather's great?
This Australian trio follows a tradition going back to Chad & Jeremy in the 60s, singing "A Summer Song" to your mom on her 45 player. The Lucksmiths have a small but manic batch of fans, and not many people do the folky acoustic pop thing this well. They're often compared to tourmates Belle and Sebastian, and it's a toss-up which band sounds more sensitive and fey. The Lucksmiths are sharper, and more into rhythm than color: Tali White's vocals sound wistful, but they're also jockishly sturdy and clear, and his drums lock into Marty Donald's jangly acoustic and Mark Monnone's limber bass like a one-band argument for a Merseybeat revival.
Depending on your taste, this may sound intriguing. But Where Were We? is a bad place to start with this band-- a compilation of slim rarities, this record collects fourteen singles, tracks from comps, and gimmick songs. The title talks about all the travel that took place while they made this-- the material was recorded over three years and three continents-- but from the songs, you'd think they never left the mythical Aussie town where they grew up and plan to die. The album is catchy and crisp; good enough to show why people like the band, but the material isn't there.
Out of context, there's nothing to like about "The Cassingle Revival," which was originally released in that much-maligned format. White opens the song with, "Another summer slipped away without me noticing," and a little later he's talking about "the palest afternoons" of autumn on the dull "A Downside to the Upstairs." And just when you've heard enough about the climate, the album's big frenzied peak announces it's "T-shirt weather!"
That song is so bright and bursting that it almost works, but for every catchy number like that there are two limp ones, dragged down by awkward rhymes, thin melodies, or shallow subjects. Songs this breezy sound even more lightweight when they hang on something as simple as pop culture references or wistful nostalgia ("I Prefer the Twentieth Century," written for-- you guessed it-- a New Year's 2000 single). And when the otherwise winning shuffle of "Myopic Friends" uses the phrase "affaire du couer"-- or when they close "Tmrw vs Y'Day" with the line, "If I don't see you in the future/ I'll see you in the pasture"-- they lose tangible amounts of dignity.
"Southernmost," which first came out in a better version on Happy Secret, is the only song that doesn't feel like getting thwacked in the face by a balloon. The genuinely poignant melody fits the relationship-gone-sour lyrics, with images from great vacations in the past: "The sky was swimming-pool blue/ And the swimming pool was, too." It's an ode to summer memories that actually feels real, in the middle of songs that take the same sentiment and flog it to death. Happy Secret is the only other Lucksmiths album I've spent time with and it's much subtler-- even recommended, if this sounds like your kind of warm-weather driving music. But Where Were We? is strictly for the fans, and it's too bad that a band this obscure would take a chance on releasing it.
