Review by Jeremy Benson
For most, initial attraction is based on familiarity. I find familiar-looking eyes incredibly attractive, for instance, and I regularly use Pandora to introduce me to music that is genetically close to the bands already in my collection. (Why Lady Gaga keeps showing up in my Bruce Springsteen channel, though, I'll never know).
So it's natural that my first response to this year's release from Those Transatlantics is to compare it with what I already know. And Civil Like the War sounds like a great many things: within the first few bars, the comparison to the New Pornographers is obvious; and a quick glance at both the NPR Music and Paste Magazine archives confirms I'm not the only listener to note the similarities. I hear, too, the horns and harmonies from Sufjan Stevens' Illinoise!, an adapted guitar line from the Beatles' "And Your Bird Can Sing," and just a pinch of Sondre Lerche production values. Nashville's Scene magazine tacked the Monkees to Those Transatlantics' aural identity, and Intake Magazine of Indianapolis added Brian Wilson to their ever-growing list of "Sounds Like..." candidates.
But always, similarities give way to differences; comparison invites contrast as its date. After putting Those Transatlantics on repeat, Neko Case dissolves (along with the Beach Boys and Peter Tork) and Kathleen Bracken's alluring vocals appear in the void; the voices of rest of the group stepping up to her accompaniment, an echoing lead guitar drawing you in. It might have been the Neko Case channel that introduced me to their sound, but their ability to re-invent the styles of other artists as their own keeps my ears glued to this album.
Civil Like the War's "Fantastic Irrelevance," for instance, sets off with a pizzicato baseline and a wispy slide guitar riff—establishing the song somewhere in the Wild West, around high-noon. The chorus, and later the instrumental breaks, draw suddenly like a combination gentlemen's duel and dance-off. And yet, the pop-ish summertime duet of the very next track, "TannenBombs," seems to come from a different group entirely. And the song after that returns to a country-western influence, as "Come On Now, Sister," commands the boom-chick rhythm of Johnny Cash. The album stands as a witness to their ability to morph and adapt, to incorporate foreign phrases into their musical vocabulary.
Maybe it's true that there is nothing new under the sun—Those Transatlantics' performance at the Midwest Fest in Grand Rapids next month probably won't be mind-jarring in the same way Dylan's was at the Newport Jazz Festival—but Civil Like the War assembles and navigates its well-crossed paths in refreshing ways—ways deserving of their own Pandora channel. Are you listening, Music Genome Project?
Those Transatlantics are performing tonight, 9 p.m., at White's Bar in Saginaw. Cost is $3. For more information on the band, visit the Transatlantics Myspace page.
© Jeremy Benson, 2010