erasing clouds
 

The Charade, Keeping Up Appearances

review by dave heaton

The Charade’s third LP continues their path of playing melodic/catchy pop songs filled with melancholy. But it also seems an especially cogent, compact expression of that. The songs are especially melodic and especially melancholy. The first, the title track, has a great hummed harmony tune, and sets up well the notion of putting a happy face forward for the sake of social graces, of not being judged, while feeling blue inside.

There’s a deep worry about the world in that song, and in the album, even if the music isn’t always letting it show. “The World Is Going Under” is played like a joyous singalong anthem, and in its own way it is one. But it’s about trying to have fun while the end of the world approaches. “To be honest with you / the world is going crazy,” Ingela Matsson sings poignantly.

That worry about the world seems to have a lot to do with feeling out of step with the direction of the world, with how other people are acting. “What’s a Normal Person?” is about going against the grain of expected behavior, about challenging the notion that everyone should shuttle from home to work and back without showing any emotions. The spunky “Heroes and Villains” tries to take a smug know-it-all down a few pegs. There are also straight-up sad love songs, the sound of someone inside a house worrying. They’re low but still exquisite, like the light country of “Ballad of Uneasy Rider (I’m a Loaded Gun)”.

The final two songs find our protagonist breaking out into the city in search of the person who will save her. The last song, “Stockholm April 2007”, is a daydream look across a crowded room, seeing someone who may be a savior, may make everything better. But alas, nothing is every perfect, and our ending is bittersweet. “There are things going on every day,” The Charade finally, truthfully observe, “some you forget / some will haunt you again and again.”

{www.skippingstonesrecords.com}


this month's issue
archive
about erasing clouds
links
contact
     

Copyright (c) 2008 erasing clouds