Light On Dark Water

I didn’t plan it this way, but it’s appropriate that this album follows Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, because there’s a definite similarity in general technique and atmosphere: a stripped-down rock sound, a melancholy atmosphere, a very distinctive singer. The sound of Dear Sir can be very roughly described as somewhere between the rawer Neil Young and the Velvet Underground. I’ve never taken narcotics, but the word comes to mind here: this is slow, basically simple, and very dispirited music. The songs are fragmented both lyrically and melodically—there are no tunes you’ll go away humming, and the best you can say about the lyrics is that they sometimes suggest something deep.

Yet it works, mainly because, like Neil Young, Cat Power (aka Chan, pronounced “Shahn,” Marshall) has a remarkably expressive voice and because her assistants—only two guitarists and a drummer—give it an instrumental framework that seems perfect for it, making the whole package come together as a pretty raw expression of the sort of somewhat disoriented depression that seems, sadly, to characterize a lot of young women these days. This will never be one of my favorite albums, but it’s not one I’ll forget, either.

You can hear samples here.

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