Be Where I Be

アルバム·レビュー

The blurb on the back of Judah Johnson's Flameshovel long-player Be Where I Be boasts of "an imaginary place where the roots of Jamaican dub and the ruined futurism of '70s Berlin meet." Huh? Maybe in a Wim Wenders movie, but not quite here. What the listener gets hold of first is polished and beautifully written, arranged, and played indie rock. One can hear everyone from U2 to R.E.M. in "Little Sounds," the opening track -- though the drum sounds are killer, all layered over one another to create a triple-time sensation. There is a sequence where the Five Stairsteps hit "Ooh Child" is inverted, making it an anthem of fatalism. The textures used by the band are warm, fluid, and dreamy, though the tunes are tight, with fine hooks and Steve Nistor's brilliant kit work (if anything, as wild and woolly as he is, he feels reined in here). Songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist Dan Johnson is a singer who has more than a little resemblance to a young Bono Vox, but that should not be held against him. The layering of electronic effects and samples into such a straight-ahead rocking brand of indie pop is its own kind of seduction. And if these songs do anything, they seduce the listener into his bleary, up-all-night-facing-a gray-dawn worldview. Be Where I Be feels all of a piece as an album as well. It's certainly not like anything else coming out of Detroit in 2006. The songs fit one after another, and though there are no segues, there doesn't need to be, either. "Star Struck," "Summer Demon," and the strange "Star Truck," where lean rock meets dream pop meets DJ production, are unsettling but completely beautiful. One does wish that the album had reversed its last two official cuts -- there is a soundscape unlisted on the cover. But "Tommi (Tears in a Bottle)" is a far more compelling, creepy, and dramatic cut than "False Spring, Honest Rendering," which is a tender-ish though equally bleak ballad that comes right out of the Elliott Smith fakebook. It's a small complaint that does nothing to tarnish a record that gives up its myriad secrets very, very slowly -- yet confidently.

© Thom Jurek /TiVo