ShipsDanielson
Secretly Canadian, 2006
Numerical Feelings: 8.3
At its best, Ships is gorgeous and stunning. With the contributions of 34 other musicians at play within the album, one can expect the music to be crowded, but one seriously is going to have his mind blown by the brilliance and life imparted into every swarming detail within. And when these brilliant lively arrangements are set against the inexplicable instantly-classic pop hooks of the album's best songs, the result is supremely hot. 'Bloodbook on the Halfshell' wanders through gentle strolling folk and frenetic surging guitar pop with equal shimmering grace; 'Did I Step on Your Trumpet's towering acoustic-guitar undulation echoes into menacing high-register counterpoint; 'Kids Pushing Kids' thumps and pulses with tireless fervor, guitars stumbling and crashing in crazy orbit around light-footed piano lines: and at such moments Ships achieves a thoroughly Pavement-ine level of gushing pop eloquence.
But on the songs that lack really great hooks, namely 'When It Comes to You I'm Lazy' through 'My Lion Sleeps Tonight', and the closer, the music suffers. Daniel Smith and his cohorts still put just as much effort into the details, but that perhaps just magnifies the negative impact of the filler tracks, as the album starts to wallow into dark, pensive experimentation and aimlessness. The effect of the eleven-minutes between the perfect first four songs, and 'Kids', is that the album's defining moments occur in two disparate chunks, and the overall listen feels disjointed and lost.
In the end, it's a small complaint, for that still leaves seven songs which probably surpass anything else affecting claims to legitimate pop greatness in the last year: but if Ships had found a way to let its lesser ideas gently complement its greater ones, rather than detract from them, it would have been a lot closer to perfect.
-7.30.2006
Ships is the effort of Daniel Smith, who adjusts the name affixed to his work in insufficiently distinctive ways to reflect the various combinations of siblings and rock contemporaries with whom he collaborates on each project. Apparently Danielson makes Christian songs but with titles like 'Did I Step on Your Trumpet?', I don't know how I missed that detail.
Running Time: 42.15
Metacritic Score: 76
Track Listing:
01 Ship the Majestic Suffix
02 Cast It at the Setting Sail
03 Bloodbook on the Halfshell*
04 Did I Step on Your Trumpet?
05 When It Comes to You I'm Lazy
06 Two Sitting Ducks
07 My Lion Sleeps Tonight
08 Kids Pushing Kids*
09 Time That Bald Sexton*
10 He Who Flattened Your Flame Is Gettin' Torched
11 Five Stars and Two Thumbs up
(*: best to play)
(Metacritic belongs to CNET Networks, Inc. They give an accurate idea of general critical feeling.)
This Review Copyright twentypelicans.com, 2006
Running Time: 42.15
Metacritic Score: 76
Track Listing:
01 Ship the Majestic Suffix
02 Cast It at the Setting Sail
03 Bloodbook on the Halfshell*
04 Did I Step on Your Trumpet?
05 When It Comes to You I'm Lazy
06 Two Sitting Ducks
07 My Lion Sleeps Tonight
08 Kids Pushing Kids*
09 Time That Bald Sexton*
10 He Who Flattened Your Flame Is Gettin' Torched
11 Five Stars and Two Thumbs up
(*: best to play)
(Metacritic belongs to CNET Networks, Inc. They give an accurate idea of general critical feeling.)
This Review Copyright twentypelicans.com, 2006