Mike Kinsella's bedroom poetry has often perplexed me. I could never figure out why someone would present the barest of lyrics in the barest of settings. Though I had always enjoyed Kinsella's American Football project (a band which I have heard that he disowns somewhat these days), I had never really bought into Owen, partly for the natural discomfort it inspired in me and partly because I just didn't understand it. But I have trouble dismissing Owen's latest effort.
I think it's unmistakably beautiful. For those who have never heard Kinsella's Owen, it sounds not unlike someone who woke up late on Sunday morning, rolled out of bed and into a guitar strap, and started virtuosically noodling through some condensed notes from half-written parts, spurting out prosaic thoughts which were running through his head right before he went to sleep the night before. The result is a sometimes uncomfortably privileged look into Kinsella's world and the access is twofold: you see not only his unshaded thoughts in the lyrics but also the introverted aftermath of these thoughts presented through polished pieces of music. As a listener, you can't let the bedroom presentation disguise the fact that the songs are incredibly well-wrought and orchestrated. Nothing in them suggests rudeness or laziness, despite the lazy environs.
"Bad News" is both the album's opener and highlight. It begins simply with the four-note plucked refrain which is the song's central motif but soon blossoms into eighteen different complex parts, fading in and out on Kinsella's polyinstrumental whims. Fortunately, Kinsella's musical whims are akin to most people's prudent decisions. He knows when to pull the strings and when to saturate the sparseness. He also knows how to mix simplistic indictment ("Whatever you think you are, you aren't") with lyrical complexity ("I know it's mean to say, but it's something I've been meaning to say to you/ for a while: You're a has-been, that never was"). "The Sad Waltzes Of Pietro Crespi" inquisitively picks up the meandering coda of "Bad News." The kinetic guitar part mimics the intonation of a spoken question and symmetrically mirrors the actual questions posed in the lyrics. I try not to pay too much attention to "One of These Days" because it drips with melancholy. And yet the song is dreadfully compelling, something of an elegy to Kinsella's father, from what I can tell. If that is the case, then it is a proper ode of which any father could be proud. Kinsella usually enjoys punctuating his idylls with an off-color "shit" or "fuck" every now and then, just to remind you that he might be angry amidst the delicate melodies. But there is newfound restraint on this album; Kinsella decides not to force the awkward slur into his music where it really doesn't belong.
At Home With is more robust than previous ones and though musical purists will probably gag when they notice Owen's cover of "Femme Fatale," it's not as apocalyptic as you might think. The VU cover is a wink and a nod to themes of Owen's lyrical past and a light-hearted dig at the sanctity of music never intended to be sanctified, a notion which Kinsella embraces wholeheartedly. He isn't in the business of building temples; he only decorates them.
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