Lysandre

Album review

After deciding to split his group Girls in 2012, Christopher Owens released his first solo record, Lysandre, in early 2013. Girls' short career arc went from scrappy, reverb-drowned eccentrics to majestic psych-prog-tinged rock, but his first effort finds Owens stripping back on both reverb and majesty in favor of a more organic, intimate sound. Split between confessional, Baroque folk ballads and bubbly rockers, the brief album traces the splintering of a love affair with all the melodic strength and clunky lyrical style associated with Owens’ previous work. He sounds more comfortable laying back in the ballads this time out, surrounding his ultra-plaintive vocals with a comforting array of acoustic guitars, vibraphones, electric pianos, and female backing vocals. “Here We Go” and “Everywhere We Knew” are very sweet songs that show a nicely tender side to Owens’ quirky persona, and the bouncy title track sounds like something twee and happy enough for Donovan to take a crack at. The uptempo songs are less successful, sounding a bit forced and, in the case of the otherwise enjoyable “New York City,” overpowered by a tiresomely honking saxophone break that should have been dragged to the recycle bin during mixdown. In more bad news, the meandering bar band reggae instrumental “Riveria Rock” does nothing but pad the album’s running time. The other two short instrumental pieces are pleasant but inessential as well. Really what this album should have been was a five-song EP made up of ballads, since they are where Owens’ strength lies. As it stands, the album is a decent attempt at a fresh start that won’t put off too many Girls fans, but until he figures out exactly what kind of singer/songwriter he wants to be, won’t likely earn him too many new fans.

© Tim Sendra /TiVo