Thursday It List and New Year Album Review

The New Year/A Weather/Transona Five (Granada Theater): Let me start off by saying that the Kadane Brothers are the best songwriters that the Dallas rock scene has ever produced. Period. How they have managed to make so many records and never make fools of themselves for a single moment is unfathomable. Though I have enjoyed many local bands in the past fourteen years, and especially the last five, the chances of another one coming along that will have the timelessness, longevity, and impact of the Kadane Brothers is something I'm not exactly counting on.

See, it's all about standards with The Kadanes. Recording in studios that don't suck with people that aren't stupid. I know, I know. Hard to imagine in today's musical landscape, where every decision is made at light-speed and the results are worried about later. No violated design principles on their minimalist cover art. One of them (Bubba) has even spent a lot of time poring over details in the only local yet nationally reputable cd manufacturer that I know of, to prevent you, bands and artists, from cutting corners and making mistakes. They have never employed the lowest common denominator tactics of so many lesser artists, which is a rare thing indeed. I'm a huge proponent of spontaneity and intentional amateurism, but there is something to be said for such a flawless discipline and work ethic.

What I'm getting at is that the Kadane Brothers are just giving us more of the same on their new New Year record, "The New Year," and when you consider that the two have spent so many years displaying such intelligence and excellence in so many variations on a theme, this is not at all a bad thing. I've heard so much hype about this being "the piano record" or something to that effect, and if that hadn't been mentioned so many times I probably wouldn't have even noticed. They have employed piano before, most famously on "The End Is Near," and have been using keyboards for at least a decade. So what's the big deal? I was actually expecting to hear ALL piano songs, with layered pianos for the big buildups, which is something I don't think I'd mind hearing them try.

But on just about every song you can point to other similar moments in their catalog, or at least a vague precedent that has already been established. If anything, the lone surprise here might be that there are more similarities to Bedhead than on the previous two New Year records, which isn't really much of a statement. It's like being surprised that Lou Reed solo records sometimes sounded like VU. For instance, album opener "Folios" possesses the same tense and repetitive snare hits used to close out "The Rest Of The Day," with chord changes and keyboard sounds very close to the track "The Present," a fan-favorite from Bedhead's triumphant career-closer "Transaction De Novo." Upon noticing the similarities, I had a good feeling this was going to be a winner from hearing the first track alone.

Elsewhere we find The New Year showing off their ability to do slow, almost country-like balladry far better than the legions that struggle to mine gold, or at least tolerable records out of that largely bankrupt territory. But they have done this at least as far back as "Any Life" from the "Dark Ages EP." The anti-rock found on "Wages Of Sleep" in the form of interwoven guitars and lack of back-beat is another facet of the Kadane sound, a reminder of the old art-world saying "Style is everything you do wrong."

There is, of course, a difference between the Kadanes' two projects, and this is largely attributed to The New Year's extended family of celebrated musicians, especially the recent announcement of Centromatic's Will Johnson joining the touring lineup. The fact that I'm not particularly a fan of Will Johnson, or even Peter Schmidt for that matter, but STILL probably won't mind hearing them tonight is just further testament to the Kadane's ability to improve everything around them. The New Year has often been compared to label-mates Silkworm for their more straightforward rock tendencies, and there is room for that comparison on the final track, "The Idea Of You," with its crunching guitar and keyboard combo. This is a logical and almost obvious comparison since Matt Kadane played some fairly raunchy organ parts on the last couple of Silkworm records, so it's safe to say it's a mutual influence. The Kadanes have also written shorter, up-tempo songs for most of their career, and it's hard to pin them down sonically, other than they seem to excel at whatever they choose to do. This record is proof of all these various abilities in one concise statement, and it could very well be my favorite of The New Year records so far.

When discussing the new album the other day, I realized that I've heard people complain about the "sameness" of The Kadane Brothers' output for over ten years now. Viewed from this perspective, the overall cohesiveness of their life's work is really something to marvel at, or as Wildcat said to me recently (paraphrasing), "their entire career is a concept." Despite the fact that they are still tragically underrated in their hometown, we should all hope that Dallas will eventually have another band that we can be equally proud of, at least in our lifetimes. (DL)

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