Windsor for the Derby
How We Lost (Secretly Canadian)Windsor for the Derby’s catalog, composed by former Austinites Dan Matz and Jason McNeely, marks a series of sequential relationships, each album a reflection of what preceded it. With eighth LP How We Lost, WFTD’s tales of distance and time finally come full circle, balancing the tranquil ambience of 1996 debut Calm Hades Float (reissued in 2006) with the more melodic moments from 2005’s Giving Up the Ghost. Recorded over a year and a half in Philadelphia as a quintet, this ebb and flow becomes immediately apparent in opener “Let Go,” which moves from pacifying Eno-esque tones to shoegazed pop (not unlike its contradictory counterpart “Hold On”), while the more upbeat “Maladies” ripples into the camera-shutter reverberations of “Robin Robinette.” “Forgotten” revisits the bedroom acoustics of 2002’s The Emotional Rescue EP, and ethereal closer “Spirit Fade” presses forward through the blankets of reverb. Windsor may wander, but they’re never lost.
This article appears in June 13 • 2008.