CENTRO-MATIC - Candidate Waltz

After sixteen years and ten studio albums under their belt, some degree of vague flattening has to be expected, especially when the band's frontman, in this case Will Johnson, is split between a solo career, another band (South San Gabriel) and the collaboration with his own alter-ego, Jason Molina. An artist who still lingers on the fringes of the American music scene, somewhat like his fellow traveller in the Undertow collective, David Bazan, but who over the years has built an impeccable reputation and an enviable body of work, not just in quantity but above all in quality, managing better than almost anyone to capture the subcutaneous rhythm of suburban America, in search of that raw, earthy fire that animates the territories between the two oceans. For this "Candidate Waltz", Johnson drops the rough guitar edges of that slow-rock sound so little "intellectual", yet so full of evocative power and spirituality (following in the footsteps of Rutili), unveiling instead a disappointingly sunny record - not because sunniness is a bad thing in itself, but because the Springsteen-esque swagger ("Only In My Double Mind") of these songs clashes sharply with the band's aesthetic, pushing it into expressive territory it clearly doesn't know how to inhabit. Radio-friendly to the extreme and carefree, basking in some reflection of sunlight, "Candidate Waltz" feels more like a release valve from the anguish of his solo compositions than a successful attempt to break away from a musical path that has, until now, been of absolute note.

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29/06/2011