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Lazarus, "Like Trees We Grow Up To Be Satellites (The Backwards America)"
Temporary Residence Limited
By the end of the last Lazarus album, Trevor Montgomery had intoned a forecast so bleak and blighted that a second album seemed an almost implausible effort. The combination of lazy vocals and a deeply depressedmusic seemed to be too much to reiterate, let alone resurrect. Yet, Lazarus is back with an album whose atmosphere is not nearly as desolate as the landscape his initial "unborn son." It's not that the Montgomery'ssignature voice has changed. He still employs the elongated vocals, making each word sound so labored and intense that it conjures an image ofutter lethargy. He still stretches syllables out to their elastic extremes. But now, the landscape around the vocals has changed. The music on "Like Trees We Grow Up To Be Satellites" seems to indicate that the sun shines a little more in the world of Lazarus and there might evenbe some vegetation lurking around the corner, as alluded to in the album'stitle. The spare guitar is again reprised but with a warmer texture. Sometimes even the word "Caribbean" is on the tip of my tongue, aroused especially by the steel drum sounds on "This American Dream" and "Yes. Roam." Even so, don't expect to find neon rainbows or happy little elvesin this new brighter Lazarus. There is still a dark cumulonimbus cloud which hovers over everything and bathes most of the songs in that harsh, yellow pre-diluvian light. On "The Poet of Emptiness" (the title alone isenough to send the bravest agoraphobe back into his bedroom), Montgomery sings: "I'm not afraid of your cursings/ it's the way friends can be when/ they are empty and jaded." Listening to a Lazarus album is a trulyprivate affair if only because you get the impression that these songs arehonestly crafted by a solitary man in the vacuum of his bedroom in the depths of 3 A.M. The fact is, a lot of artists create songs in this way.The difference here is that you can actually sense the bedroom. You can see the ruffled sheets on the bed; you can hear the silence in the apartment; you can smell the stale air of a room whose door and windows are closed; and most importantly you can hear the introspection as it plays itself out on the guitar in Montgomery's hands. "Singing to the Thieves" is the album's highpoint. Both the pace and duration of the songis rather quick and the entire effect is positively life-affirming. A fuzzy guitar is greeted by a strong drumbeat (it could be described as fast considered against the rest of the album) and I can't get the image of Neutral Milk Hotel out of my head when I listen to the song. Aside from this song, I don't know that there has been a lot of growth from Lazarus's first haunted and haunting offering, but I am also not sure whatyou can expect from such a cruelly resuscitated soul.
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