I was so disappointed with both the music on the last Rilo Kiley album and with Jenny Lewis’ sex-kitten cavorting which accompanied the PR effort that I ended up developing a real dislike of the band.  This is possibly due to me being a bit of dick I suppose, rather than any fault of the band, but I really didn’t like the actual tunes much either so the results would have been much the same I guess.

Anyhow this album, recorded by Jenny Lewis and her fella Johnathan Rice, seems to straddle the pop instincts of Rilo Kiley and the soulful gospel-folk of Lewis’ solo work.  Unfortunately, I don’t actually know enough about Rice’s own work to give you an idea where it might sit as far as a fan of his music would be concerned.  In general though, as will surprise precisely no readers of this site, I tend more towards Jenny Lewis than I do to Rilo Kiley, and this fact is pretty much all you need to know to predict my reaction to this record.

Generally, when they go upbeat and get into their boy-girl, borderline doo-wop pop tunes then I kind of tune out.  Not that it’s no good or anything, just that I don’t find it at all emotionally engaging, so for all it’s pleasant enough my attention tends to drift.

Given that they are bumping uglies and are both successful musicians in their own right, I guess I am not surprised that there is a little more blissed out dreaminess to this album than any real sense of driven artistic adventure, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad record.  There are some cracking moments on this, notably opener Little Fly, and songs like As a Sprout and Wild is the Wind.

Overall I think there are far too many indifferent, middle of the road efforts like Winter Sun for me to ever end up forming a deep or particularly lasting bond with the album as a whole, but it’s an enjoyable listen with some great moments.  In fact, it’s an album which feels like it was conceived on a lazy, contented Sunday afternoon, even down to the cover art, and that is probably the best way to listen to it as well.

Jenny & Johnny – Little Fly

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Jenny & Johnny – As a Sprout

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Website | More mp3s | Buy direct from the band

I’m having a hightly schizophrenic time listening to this album.  In the manner of a strident PTA mother slightly out of her depth amongst intelligent people who have been thinking and talking about much bigger issues for years, I find myself struggling to form even the most rudimentary English sentence.  No wait, maybe that’s someone else I’m thinking of.  I’m just struggling to get my opinion straight.

I think my flip-flopping may be simply following the lead of the album itself, because it seems to be enormously variable.  There are times when it is painfully bad – cod soul-rock from another era, lamely pastiched in this one.  There are times when it’s bloody brilliant too – ballsy yet beautiful embodying that weird combination of spirited independence and girlish coquettishness that Lewis herself seems to exude.

She’s forsaken most of the gospel of Rabbit Fur Coat, and now explores a more rock ‘n’ roll direction, occasionally with real verve.  See Fernando is terrific, but Next Messiah has great moments and really cringeworthy ones, epitomising the dichotomy of the whole album.

Amongst the slower stuff, there’s a lovely, easy soul to some of it, lush, intimate aspects to other bits and then irritatingly banal Radio 2 leanings to others.  Godspeed is poor.  Sing a Song For Them is one of the worst songs I’ve heard in ages.  Imagine Michael Jackson’s worst Heal the World instincts dripping around a melody-free plod, with high school harmonies and power ballad guitar finishing off what little remains of your will to live – awful.  But then, Pretty Bird and Black Sand are just lovely and Jack Killed Mom is rollicking.

I hate to say it but you’re on your own with this one people.  Some of it’s great, some of it’s dreadful and I really don’t know what to make of it.  Playlists, I suspect.

Jenny Lewis – Pretty Bird
Jenny Lewis – See Fernando

Website | More mp3s | Buy from Amazon

I often get the impression that Rilo Kiley generate a blinding fever of Indie Kid Panting Hots syndrome, simply due to the cocky foxiness of eye-candy-in-chief, Miss Jenny Lewis. She’s clearly decided in recent years that she is indeed a bit of a tasty morsel and that she shall be enjoying that for the foreseeable future, thank you very much. Indie kids have, in return for her kindness in parading about in a bunch of extremely short skirts and slightly mystifying leotard thingies, responded by elevating Rilo Kiley to the flagrantly undeserved status of indie heroes.

They’re not gods, they’re shit. Honestly, just not very good at all I’m afraid. I have fucking tried with this lot, honestly I have. Lewis’ collaboration with the Watson Twins on Rabbit Fur Coat produced a truly exceptional album and as such I convinced myself that there must be more merit in her other band than I had managed to notice thus far. I was wrong.

They have a couple of decent songs on More Adventurous – namely It’s a Hit and Science vs Romance – but that’s about it. Eventually I had to give in and admit they were crap, and I felt freer for doing so: liberated of the indie orthodoxy. None of the songs I have heard so far from their latest album persuade me that I am mistaken in discarding them either, and the excruciating video implies that the self-appreciative posturing is only going to increase.

Thing is, how did someone who produced something as lovely as Rabbit Fur Coat find herself unable to write a decent indie album? It’s clearly not just Joanna Newsom syndrome, whereby the highly unusual appearance of an extremely attractive woman in the indie sphere sends all the boys into a state of such frantic excitement that they blindly over-state her talents because they wish she was as talented as the girl in their heads. I mean, Lewis has at least written one blinding record, and having seen her live, she can really, really sing. But once she becomes a part of the band again it just doesn’t work and you get a mediocre album of unmemorable West Coast indie-pop-light. Don’t listen to your hormones boys, Rilo Kiley are the most overrated group in the world of indie at the moment.

Rilo Kiley – It’s a Hit
Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins – The Charging Sky
Rilo Kiley – Silver Lining

website | amazon