Wild Fairy Tales

Aside from some initial talk back when the album details were first announced, I haven't heard a whole lot discussed about the new DeVotchKa album, "A Mad and Faithful Telling." The band seemed to hit a huge spike in popularity thanks to their domination on the "Little Miss Sunshine" soundtrack back in 2006 (most of the material from which was culled from their 2004 album "How It Ends"), but apparently all that good will has died down significantly. It upsets me a little bit, but that shouldn't prevent me in any way from discussing the album briefly myself.

Musical schizophrenia can be a positive thing sometimes. If it's done right, an album can take you through a virtual world tour of musical styles over the course of an hour or so and you'll come away feeling like an Indiana Jones-like champion explorer. The looming problem is that most bands who consistently shape-shift via their music get it wrong and you get very uneven and at times painful albums to listen through. So these are careful waters to tread through.

"A Mad and Faithful Telling" is schizophrenic, in a similar vein to past DeVotchKa records. One moment you've got Eastern European gypsy-styled music ala Beirut and Gogol Bordello, and the next you have a Calexico-like Spanish adventure. After that you go on a journey to the Old West, where bandits are a dime a dozen and there are showdowns at sunset. Somewhere in there you also visit an Andrew Bird-influenced America, where full symphonies and the occasional weeping violin make for beautiful and spacious songs. And all of that is generally lovely in its own way. To fill out the statements I made earlier, somehow the band makes it all work.

A big part of everything coming together so well are the vocals of Nick Urata. His powerful and distinctive voice wails and moans and occasionally slips into Spanish for no apparent reason other than he knows he can get away with it. Aside from the great use of a variety of instruments from toy pianos to accordions to full orchestras, the voice is the glue to this mismatched puzzle. I know lots of vocalists who couldn't pull this album off, but Urata plays a huge role in keeping "A Mad and Faithful Telling" from going off the rails.

Now comes the part where I say that "How It Ends" was a better DeVotchKa album. And that's because it is. There were just bits and pieces, little instrumental flairs, little vocal tics, that hit harder than anything the band had previously done. "A Mad and Faithful Telling" still has most of those elements, and they're still great, but something's lacking this time around compared to last time. That said, of the four total DeVotchKa albums, this new one is probably their second best. It's definitely an effort they should be proud of, despite it taking them 4 years to pull it together after "How It Ends" (I'm not really giving them credit for "Little Miss Sunshine" as most everything was recycled, as noted earlier). I'm also not sure this is the best album for the band to try and capitalize on their new-found popularity. All the fans they gained as a result of that small-movie-that-could might be more turned off by all the shifting around from a style perspective. Granted, I give the band kudos for sticking to their guns and making music that's still feeling fresh and entertaining, but I also wouldn't have put them down for compromising their values slightly to make a more marketable and simpler-to-listen-to album. At the end of the day though- nice work lady and gents.

DeVotchKa- The Clockwise Witness

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Labels: devotchka