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As a record that comes from Devendra Banhart’s new label, you can already guess as to what to expect. This is a record that’s steeped in a mysterious past, full of music that harks back to the late 60’s and early 70’s. Not as strictly folk as you might think, this occupies some weird middle ground of Americana that could easily soundtrack some Cronenburg or Lynch movie, something with a delicate balance between the light and the dark. Can’t Go Back is truly a novel debut album.
Papercuts hail from the West Coast of California. San Francisco to be precise, and this Californian sunshine fills the entire album. Opener Dear Employee may have an air of depression around its lyrics but the whistful guitars and uplifting tempo makes it feel anything but. John Brown could have been taken directly from a Crosby, Stills & Nash record at their prime with it’s high vocals and duelling acoustic guitars. One of the standouts is Take The 227th Exit which seems to exist in some weird time bubble with it’s clunking guitars, roundhouse drums and rhythmic lyrics exactly matching the up-and-down piano, it sounds like it’s trapped in the deep and distant times, the production sounds dense and packed with music and yet its inextricably now and of our times. The beautiful Unavailable is a love song of twisted love, the protagonist longing for a girl who always complains her man of choice is unavailable and yet spurns their advances. This is all sung over some aching acoustic guitars, all picked and chiming together in unison. It’s not all acoustic guitars though, Outside Looking In has some wonderful West Coast Country Rock guitars all chunky and drenched in a throw-back to the 70’s.
The album closer The World I Love distills all that’s great about the Papercuts debut record into one song; the sunshine drenched vocals, simple piano and guitars all covered in a rich velvet blanket of retro production. The songs may all deal with alienation and heart break, but their music seems to hint at something beyond all this, a suggestion that there’s plenty more fish in the sea and we all know that, in the end, you can’t go back.
Links:
Papercuts [official site] [myspace]
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