BISHOP ALLEN - The Broken String

In times when music is consumed from dawn to dusk, dealing with a band that lets four years go by after its debut before reappearing is, to say the least, startling.

With "Charm School" things had actually gone rather well, with decent reviews, comparisons to Wilco, Pixies and the like, a steady run of dates and shows. Then silence, until the start of last year, when they resurfaced out of nowhere with a daring project: one Ep a month for all of 2006, for a total of 58 songs. On the strength of the idea alone, their name was back on the lips of the indie world that matters. Distribution was, as usual, left to the internet, since, needless to say, no label was willing to take the risk of putting them out. Now, with this "Broken String", Bishop Allen pick back up 10 tracks drawn from those Eps, rearranged in a pop vein à-la Shins, and sent out into the far more ordinary music circuit.

Indie-folk shaped with the means at hand, with their own quirks, with a solid melodic streak. The lean 40 minutes of Bishop Allen's music suit solitary listening, on carefree days, softened by the awareness that doing sweet nothing in that situation, at that moment, is perfectly allowed. And on top of that, Bishop Allen also turn out a genuinely good record. It's not just a fine cup of tea for fans of the genre, but goes well beyond the bare minimum.

First of all "Rain", the undisputed gem of the bunch, released as a single for good reason, picked up and reviewed even by the least-clicked mp3 blogs: a sing-song verse and a wordy chorus, the whole thing already wrapped up in the first minute, only to repeat itself over the following two. "Rain" is one of the best songs heard this year, and fully comparable to the poppier side of Why? on "Elephant Eyelash".

In small doses, but here and there you catch a flash of quality, even when what you're hearing seems to be the usual blueprint of a now all-devouring genre.

"The Chinatown Bus" is nothing more than a dusted-off page from the Bright Eyes songbook, but the setting built around it brings to mind Sufjan Stevens. "Click Click Click" is a divertissement for banjo, little bells and whatever else follows, enough to transform an acoustic ditty into an indie-pop ballad. The rest is simplicity for simplicity's sake, it's carefree, the same lightheartedness mentioned earlier, that of doing sweet nothing. Even when things get more complex and structured, as in the melancholy "Flight 180", with a string chorus in keeping with a gorgeous melody.

As a side note, a brief word on "Middle Management", which has nothing to do with the rest of the album - youthful emo-punk-pop, you might call it: it's hard to tell how much of it is revivalist (Strokes, Babyshambles, that crowd) and how much is electrified Bright Eyes.

Bishop Allen close out the record in pure Beatles-esque style with "The News From Your Bed".

Considering the stylistic variety on offer and the freshness of the result, considering "Rain" and "Flight 180", considering how it feels once the record is over, "The Broken String" is a thoroughly successful album of its kind.

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11/10/2007