A
trend has formed in indie-rock lately: albums that start with an epic song that
builds slowly and dramatically to a nearly orchestral crescendo. The intent, it
seems, is to tell the listener, "Hey, this is some epic, dramatic shit we've
got up in here!" Few discs actually keep that promise, which makes it all the
more forehead-slapping that DeVotchKa hits the ground running, kicking,
yelping, and dancing with "Basso Profundo," the first track on its new A Mad
And Faithful Telling.
Of course, DeVotchKa has never been strictly an indie-rock act. Fluttering
around the genre's fringes—as well as the outer limits of everything from
mariachi to gypsy folk—the band has bent its instrumental eclecticism
into pulsing, swaying songs that unfold like wildflowers. "Along The Way"
evokes the quirk and lushness of latter-day Talking Heads far more elegantly
than middleweights like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and frontman Nick Urata has
never gargled so much tequila as he does on the simmering "Undone." A recent
boost in confidence and fame following DeVotchKa's soundtrack to Little Miss
Sunshine has
served Telling well:
Urata's slurred warble leaps into soaring vibrato, and the group's eerie throb
of violin, accordion, and sousaphone has never felt so cinematic. It's an epic
sound, for sure, but one whose magnificence doesn't need a megaphone in front
of it.
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