Drunk
Tableside Manners (Jag Jaguwar)
The orange glow burning through the snow-crusted windows on Drunk’s album cover hints that warmth triumphing over coldness is the theme of this outing. Anyone who has heard this Richmond, Va., band before knows to expect morose, wintry compositions, but in the past, Drunk have taken asides which indicate that they’re not taking themselves all that seriously. The turn that lead singer-songwriter Rick Alverson and band take here is indeed springy and upbeat, but it turns out to be the kind of upbeat that only Belle & Sebastian fans can appreciate. The strategy on Tableside Manners is to alternate sad and slow dirges with prancing, fey tracks (“Forfeit,” “Queen of Venice”). After all, you have to dilute Alverson’s nasal laments about women named Dorthea and about how “the darkness grows and grows” somehow, lest the final result end up a collection of moans and whines. Or do you? Just as nature itself is unsentimental, so are these fancier songs, which turn out to be more emotionally barren than the sparer numbers (“Mutual Friend,” “Truancy”). This septet (give or take a couple of revolving players) has the talent to play their elaborate compositions of guitar, bass, drums, Farfisa, musical saw, atmospheric vibraphone, and unobtrusive accordion flawlessly, and also has the potential to elevate their sadness to the sublime, as Leonard Cohen and Syd Barrett have done before them. So why not take away the synthetic antidepressants and feel the pain? 
This article appears in January 21 • 2000.