You are not this album’s best friend. Yet. Though maybe you will be, maybe that’s the deal here. It treats you as if you are from the word go. Actually, that word is “I” and is followed by “checked into a bargain priced room in La Cienega”, followed by many many more chattering illustrations. Those words are so vivid and familiarly worn that he, John Darniele, could surely only have chosen them for an intimate exchange. You don’t address a room of people in the same way, though he does have a story to tell, and it sounds like he really does want to tell it. It’s welcoming and courteous, as albums go. It trusts you. And even though it is he who probably has the most to benefit from the 13 frank exchanges contained here, that can work both ways. At the very least you can appreciate the courage and eloquence it took to take these from real life experience to song.
Open the cover and the reason that this is such an important album for its author is there in black and white: “Made possible by my stepfather, may the peace which eluded you in life be yours now… dedicated to any young men and women anywhere who live with people who abuse them, with the following good news – you will live to tell your story, never lose hope”. The clear, open confirmation of this certainly adds to the poignancy of a beautifully presented album, but it is such a straightforward compendium of linked tales and emotions, his stepfather a reoccurring theme by name, that you can’t miss the point. It doesn’t once lose itself amid clumsy metaphors or lengthy abstract considerations. It unveils itself bluntly, with an air almost of exorcism or celebration, with just enough poetry, just exquisite enough a turn of phrase to make it hypnotic.
It is undoubtedly the lyrics that are this album. Take the contemplatively haunting ‘Pale Green Things’ (“my sister called at 3am, just last December, she told me how you’d died at last, that morning at the race track was one thing I remember”) or the remarkably upbeat ‘Dance Music’ betraying its bruised content and detailing a favoured form of escapism (“when the police come to get me, I’m listening to dance music”). But the accompanying music throughout is so slight, interlocked, well arranged and typically American that it both serves as an anonymous backdrop and an encouraging emotional crescendo when needed. It reminds of Canada’s Hidden Cameras, who have themselves recorded a celebratory musical exorcism of sorts, with the brusqueness of Manchester’s I Am Kloot, a traditional Dylanesque flow and a tale of its own. Best friend wanted – must be a good listener.