For many musicians, the act of picking out a tune on an acoustic guitar and singing along is the easiest, most pleasurable, and therapeutic thing in the world. And, not coincidentally, it’s also the most tired and clichéd mode of performance, one forever associated with egregiously earnest, coffeehouse-scented singer-songwriter hokum. As products of the post-millennial West Coast acid-folk insurgence, Ben Chasny and Donovan Quinn have spent a great deal of the past decade reinstating the acoustic guitar as an agent of experimentalism rather than sentimentalism: Under his nom de psych, Six Organs of Admittance, Chasny has amassed a formidable catalogue of string-and-mind-bending ragas, while Quinn has used his unplugged instrument as a springboard into more fantastical realms with the Skygreen Leopards. But now that they’re cracking open their guitar cases side-by-side as New Bums, the two present themselves with their most formidable challenge yet: to make something familiar—i.e., a low-key, classic-rock-inspired record—uniquely their own.
According to Chasny’s blog, New Bums’ debut album has been in the works on-and-off for roughly five years, but Voices in a Rented Room sounds like it was written and recorded in about five hours, with one set of eyes on a watch and the other on the wallet. But that’s as much a comment on the album’s purity of vision and effortless execution as its scrappy, off-the-cuff vibe. Melodically, these 12 songs would fit more comfortably in Quinn’s canon than Chasny’s, though the latter’s experience covering old Gary Higgins obscurities prepares him well for the sweet serenading required here. Rather than contrast their voices and personalities, Voices in a Rented Room presents its participants as a united front and, luckily, their harmonizing sounds a lot like a double-tracked Marc Bolan vocal. (The opening “Black Bough” will immediately endear itself to anyone whose favorite T. Rex song is “Ballrooms of Mars.”)
True to its title, Voices in a Rented Room is modestly scaled and simply structured; the tone and form established in a song’s first verse don’t change by the time we reach the third. But even within these confines, New Bums rarely retrace their steps: the beautifully dazed “Sometimes You Crash” sounds like something a strung-out Alex Chilton would have strummed out during a late-night session for Big Star’s Third/Sister Lovers, whereas the busker boogie of “Your Bullshit” imagines an alternate 1990s where Royal Trux sold enough records for Virgin to get their own MTV Unplugged episode. But what makes this album special—and a highlight amid both principals’ sprawling discographies—is the way Chasny and Quinn offset their idyllic, campfire-ready accessibility with mellow-harshing irreverence. New Bums are ultimately a harmony duo that thrives on mischief and discord: pretty songs laden with cuss words, absurdist expressions of modern-bromance (“Your Girlfriend Might Be a Cop”), oblique references to those poor heshers who shot themselves in the head after listening to Judas Priest. On Voices in a Rented Room, Chasny and Quinn resemble not so much folk singers as punk pranksters who couldn’t afford to pay their electricity bill. Just call ’em Simon & Garfuckoff.
