Cass McCombs
A (Monitor) Make room, Grandpaboy, your “Swingin Party” has arrived. Lackadaisical where Westerberg was acid-tongued (now bitter), young Baltimore by way of the Bay Arean Cass McCombs nevertheless sounds deliciously “Androgynous.” In title alone, McCombs’ “A Comedian Is Someone Who Tells Jokes” somehow got left off of Pleased to Meet Me (“I spend my days shaking hands, forgetting names, recycling cans … a comedian”). Adding a melodic dimension where his well-received EP Not the Way droned (“Opium Flower”), A is an unassuming little curve-setter. Quaffing less reverb than My Morning Jacket’s Jimmy James, McCombs’ languid voice basks in just such an underscoring, which makes it tough to decipher the lyrics and tougher sometimes to even care. Opener “I Went to the Hospital,” with its laughing gas impressionism, could be about dying, breaking up, or just visiting the hospital. Anyway you suture it, it’s all the same: “I wanna be famous for falling in love,” he repeats longingly. You may never hear the words leading up to “Aids in Africa,” but really, what more needs to be said? It’s a chant to stay in your recesses. The halting “Gee, It’s Good to Be Back Home” embodies the disc’s shambolic, lo-fi bedroom feel, but its backing (warm acoustics and cloud cover Farfisa) is too precise for such a designation. Its simple, almost plodding confessionals like “Meet Me Here at Dawn” infuse A with a breezy charm. There’s little Replacements here, “When the Bible Was Wrote” romping gently as the only real uptempo, while “Bobby, King of Boys Town” clippity-clops down the back road out of Omaha. Still, here comes a regular. (Wednesday, March 17, 8:45pm @ La Zona Rosa)
This article appears in March 12 • 2004.
