The Capstan Shafts, Environ Maiden

reviewed by dave heaton

On one level it's definitely nice to see a "proper" Capstan Shafts CD, meaning one with more professional-looking packaging, on a more "professional" record label (Rainbow Quartz). It's even better, though, to find that all of that means nothing. Be it "CD" or "CD-R", Vermont's premier home-recording lo-fi pop-rocker, Dean Wells is proceeding like he has been the last three years, banging through another set of catchy, fuzzy songs with clever titles, revved-up guitars, and melodies to die for. Environ Maiden could just as well be a CD-R in hand-made packaging (like, for example, the excellent Her Versus the Sad Cold Eventually, which I swear I'll get around to writing about soon) or a cassette tape (like the Dreamilys Throttled Revolts tape from a few months back; ditto). It could be in the form of any of the previous nearly-20 Capstan Shafts releases. But a "real" CD is likely to get more attention, at the very least from publications with unfortunately snobbish/old-fashioned views about what constitutes a "professional" release. So it's great news that it's in the same vein as the previous recordings, and just as good.

There are differences among the various Capstan Shafts recordings – some are noisier, some have more of a laidback country-ish vibe – but at the same time they come together to resemble one stream of creativity. That's partly because of how many songs there are, and how quickly Wells churns out new recordings of them. Even the most obsessive of us will have trouble keeping track of song titles when somebody's releasing hundreds of similar sings in just a couple years. (A side question, for discussion: at what point in Bob Pollard's discography does the average diehard fan lose the ability to keep track of which songs are called what and came from where? For me it happened a while ago.)

Environ Maiden kicks strongly right at the start, and just keeps rolling on for 28 more songs, each averaging around 70 seconds in length. This album is a river unto itself. Each song inside is, in its own way a killer: punching you with a tune, some rock n' roll guitars, and some interesting, enigmatic lyrics, and then disappearing, clearing the way for the next. That leaves the album filled with secrets, in a way: listen many times and still catch a song that slipped past you before.

I find the lyrics more inscrutable, in terms of meaning, than usual, and I like them that way. The song titles give the album a theme of environmental catastrophe, with activists and scientists and plants and animals lurking about. But that typically flirtatious side is here too, where it feels like each song could be a drunken phone call to a secret crush. And none of it ever adds up to something that can be easily summed up, as far as what the songs are about. A sense of mystery is a virtue Wells knows about. One chorus I can't get enough of is "Better get a dream out of this!", especially near the line "one too many dirty martinis", within an exuberantly messy minute-long rocker. To me it represents the best side of this whole Capstan Shafts adventure: how much fun the music is. In a world of way too much musicians taking themselves too seriously, the Capstan Shafts stand apart.

{www.rainbowquartz.com}