Sorta: Strange and Sad But True (by Defensive Listening)

There will always be certain things about Dallas that I just don't "get." For one, the city has an oft talked about inferiority complex stemming from unflattering comparisons to other, more revered municipalities, and as a result, Dallasites tend to overcompensate in strange, alarming and often humorous ways. Whether it be the big hair, fake tans, or muscled execs in an army of bright yellow Hummers going 80 down Preston, the city's culture goes beyond overcompensation and into the realm of the absurd. Dallas is known around the world for its embarrassingly cheesy attempts to place itself on a higher plane, yet the city never gives up it's pursuit of the gaudy and grandiose. Year after year, Dallas becomes more and more like a hick version of L.A., and that seems to be exactly what many of its residents want.

Unfortunately, this ill advised behavior bleeds into the city's music scene too. The tacky guitar solo is just as much a part of Dallas' history as any of the aforementioned status symbols, and its immortality in local music will never make make much sense to me. Equally puzzling is the overly ubiquitous placement of pedal steel in every single slow song that has ever been played by those Dallas bands that specialize in what Stonedranger recently described as "good old fashioned blah blah blah." Sorta's newest record, Strange And Sad But True, has Dallas sized portions of good old fashioned blah blah blah all over it.

I have to begin by saying that Sorta isn't grating in any way, so most of the time that I've spent listening to this record has at least been bearable, which is probably the best compliment I can give them. Local critics and fans often reference Sorta's musical adeptness as a reason to get behind them, and although I appreciate good musicianship as much as the next guy, musical muscle flexing means very little to me in and of itself. Not writing a lyric like "Damned if I do/Damned if I don't" is much more important than any sort of guitar heroics, and an extra cheesy guitar line, no matter how complex, is only going to make a line like that sound a lot worse than it already does. The relationship between dubious music choices and bad lyrics is highly problematic for Sorta, and it manifests itself throughout their latest full length.

For example, the band has taken it upon themselves to write a song about one of this decade's worst local tragedies: The murderof 21 year old Lorena Osorio Godoy, who was thrown eighty five feet off of George Bush Turnpike by her boyfriend in Richardson. In an exercise in subtlety, the track is titled "85 Feet," and there is something morbidly surreal about hearing this plain, radio friendly acoustic song that borders on the exploitative. Perhaps its because when I hear it, I can only picture drunk SMU sorority girls swaying back and forth to the sappy melody with Shiners in hand. If the band was trying to emphasize the glaring contrast of a deadly serious narrative performed over lightweight fluff, then mission accomplished. However, I wonder how I would feel if a song like that was written about someone I knew. It isn't the mere fact that they wrote it that's offensive, and I promise I can hadle a song dealing with heavy subject matter such as this. In fact, I felt deeply about this tragedy when it happened, and I think Lorena Godoy deserves an artistic tribute of some sort. I just think she deserves better than a song that "sorta" sounds like Fastball.

Throughout the album, the band attempts a wide variety of styles that can be placed all over the map, which is actually pretty daring considering that this is only their third full length. I do respect their reach for sonic diversity to a point, but no living band of white men should ever attempt reggae rhythms with the kind of straight faced seriousness that Sorta does on "Pink and Baby Blue," which seems to be stylistically trapped in the long gone days of 311. In fairness, I should say that I enjoyed the synthesizer sound they used on the track, which I'm assuming is the same one they used on opener "Buttercup". It sounds so ridiculous on "Buttercup" that I almost believed I was in for something different when I first put this album on, something a little less by the numbers and perhaps a bit more exciting. Its not that I'm a synth fetishist by any means, but I would have gladly taken a lot more of that synth for a lot less of the boring pedal steel that clogs every instrumental pore on Strange and Sad. I understand the desire to employ pedal steel because it always sounds timeless and classy, but band after band is driving this once sacred instrument into the ground as a tired roots rock cliche, and I don't know if it can
ever fully recover.

If Sorta could just pull back a little on the eagerness to bog their song writing down with constant solos, I think the band would be vastly improved. On the albums' most memorable melody, "Closer", the overpowering instrumentation is restrained and the song is given enough breathing room to get stuck in your head. I know they're huge Wilco fans, and Wilco certainly has employed a lot of guitar molestation in their live shows throughout the years. However, Wilco is also big enough to hire Nels Cline, a renowned improvisational player, and nothing Sorta does comes even close to his unique level of musicianship. The guitar playing on tracks like "Lazybones" actually reminds me of a house band I saw performing at a bikini contest that my friends dragged me to when I was 18, which is why I find it surprising that the local music press spends so much time wondering aloud why Sorta isn't bigger outside of Dallas. Bands that make it outside of Dallas don't sound like bands that play at bikini contests. Ever. And unfortunately, Sorta's overly ambitious guitar playing makes it clear why they have yet to make an impression outside the metroplex.

I think Sorta has put together a competent and ambitious collection of songs on Strange and Sad But True that will go over really well with that weird lower Greenville demographic where big hair, hipsters, and fake tans meet up and hang out. They've had well attended release shows for this record at The Granada and Art Prostitute, and I commend them for such savvy taste in venues. I understand why those places are so respected in this culture starved city, and I'm glad that they are willing to take chances on local acts. But unfortunately, Sorta seems like a hipsterfied musical equivalent of a yellow hummer, and much like the rest of Dallas', um, culture, they're always going to be one of those things I just don't get.