(Rough Trade/Remote Control)

Smooth, talented, unfortunately forgettable

It’s often easier to write about an album’s context than it is to write about how the thing sounds, because tackling the latter requires either the use of sloppy similes, broad generalisations, or boring music theory technicalities. So we critics avoid the issue of what the thing sounds like – it’s not like you guys don’t know how to use MySpace – in favour of what the thing could mean in its context. But what if you’re presented with an album that comes virtually sans context, and one whose sonic textures are so well-worn that only the most shopworn of phrases will have any purchase on it? Ladies and gentlemen, I present Dylan LeBlanc’s début, Paupers Field. There’s very little worth knowing about LeBlanc himself, except that he is preposterously young (he was born in 1990) and that his father was a session player in the legendary Muscle Shoals studio. And what does it sound like? LeBlanc’s work begs for comparison with The Band, the acoustic Neil Young, or Crosby, Stills and Nash; broadly speaking, he works within the nostalgic terrain of seventies Americana recently mined by Midlake. And yes, he’s obviously phenomenally talented; no less than Emmylou Harris drops in to duet with him on If The Creek Don’t Rise. Regardless, it would be nice if he went out and got himself some backstory and some emotional experience before he pens his next album – not only for the sake of his listeners, but also for the poor critics who have to review it.

***½

CHAD PARKHILL

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