DeVotchKa’s brand is timeless, like a rare mineral immune to decomposition. The band has a great name, a Hollywood backstory (burlesque backing band turned soundtrack superstars) and an always intriguing sound with just enough Eastern European folk influence to keep one’s ears perked.
Its latest offering, 100 Lovers, is better and a bit more esoteric than its 2008 crossover album A Mad and Faithful Telling. That’s not to say, however, that the record deserves extensive acclaim.
“Exhaustible” sounds like the product of three factors: The band needed a single, lead singer Nick Urata really liked the melody of Thom Yorke’s vocals from “No Surprises,” and the band decided to borrow some Peter Bjorn and John whistling to lighten the leaden tone of the album. The lyrics are designed to keep the needle moving and not much else: “You and I could conquer distance/ Space and time and mass resistance/ And I really must insist you come with me my dear.”
Earlier in 100 Lovers, we find DeVotchKa again borrowing ideas, this time from its own Little Miss Sunshine score with “All the Sand in the Sea.” The song is the second track of the album and counts on the release of momentum yet to be established, the climax to a movie the listener can’t see. Granted, the song is epic — keyboards layered under strings and high-tempo drums — but it is presented without context or design.
There are two interludes placed throughout the album. The first, “Interlude 1,” is terrifically eerie with fragments of reverb-heavy polka bleeding into the next track, “The Man from San Sebastian.” If a friend wants to sample DeVotchka, simply play “San Sebastian.” It is such a prototypical DeVotchKa song with its Gypsy accordion introducing vaguely brooding words that everything else the group plays might as well be a variation of it.
When DeVotchKa strays a bit too far from its signature sound, it arrives at annoyances such as penultimate track “Contrabanda.” The rhythms used come off as sort of an Xavier Cugat bastardization. Urata adopting a Spanish accent at times to wail “Are You Still With Me” does not help the aesthetics.
By contrast, final track “Sunshine” is successful, adventurous DeVotchKa. A blip of theremin starts the track and recalls Jim O’Rourke’s musical fragments from Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Instruments are introduced and casually discarded for more interesting ones, only to reappear later. A steel guitar gives way to ornate violin which then cedes the floor to cello. Formally speaking, “Sunshine” is a clear display of talent at work.
Maybe the best analogy for DeVotchKa’s output is with that infamously quirky road trip movie it scored in 2006. It’s nice while the hype lasts and kind of entertaining without it, but there’s really not much to come back to.
RATING: 2 out of 5 Stars
vmain13@umdbk.com
