Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Vs. Children

review by dave heaton

I thought the brilliance of Etiquette was related to Owen Ashworth realizing the limitations of his singing voice and pulling in other singers to express his songs in ways he cannot. But here is the follow-up, he’s doing almost all of the singing, and as an album it’s as good or better. So call me the fool, and note how his songwriting is getting deeper, as the music continues to expand beyond the casiotone, which he doesn’t use here. Instead there’s piano, drum machines, and an occasional country-ish mood with fits with the American sweep of the album, which in titles or songs references several specific places across the US – Vermont, Minnesota, Illinois.

Stories are casually told with an impressive level of detail and feeling, like on the bookends that are two of his best songs. First is a reaction/narrative of a bank robber’s tale, apparently inspired by a real-life acquaintance of Ashworth’s. The song expresses awe at what people will do and at what they can get away with, while also observing the ways we react to and mythologize such acts: “You know they called you the choirboy / before they had any hints / that you only ever pressed your palms / so you wouldn’t leave prints”. It’s cinematic, not just for a reference to Bonnie and Clyde, but for the vividness of the story and of the melody, with repeating piano that keeps the scene stark.

There is the same detail throughout the album, and seriousness, even though he finds room for wit along the way. Like in the third song, “Optimist Vs. The Silent Alarm (When the Saints Go Marching In”, another outlaw tale of sorts, where he sings, “with the money in the backseat baby we could buy a house / and raise a little family on Schlitz and Mickey Mouse.”

The songs all flow together well, often taking the form of letters and often carrying similar themes of escape and human frailty. Our narrator projects tenderness towards suffering, loneliness, and unexpected problems, like a car wreck or unplanned parenthood, the horror of which is narrated in “Killers”.

Loneliness dominates the other book-end, “White Jetta”. It has the most evocative beat/melody combination, and is one place on the album where a narrative is alternated with a catchy hook. That hook is our character’s observation about the boys in her hometown of Kansas City, that they “stay the same / don’t change”, which also echoes the title of the KC-set film that Ashworth recently scored (Stay the Same Never Change). Here that hook, and the tune itself, rattles through the brain long after the album has ended, carrying with it memories of the people whose lives are so starkly yet tenderly depicted across the album.

{www.tomlab.de}