Excuse me, but do you carry a licence for that voice, sir?
Almost everything about Absentee has great weight to it, from their surefooted pace through to the maudlin gravity of the failure and black comic hopelessness informing the lyrics. But no aspect carries more clout than Dan Michaelson’s obscenely hefty vocal chords. It is possibly the eighth wonder of the indie world, they could handle the security duties of a medium-large category venue single handed and could certainly blow your house down, no matter where you live, ma’am. We could accept it from an ageing Tennessee bluesman who’d been trustily distilling all the anguish and bad behaviour of life, its rough liqueurs and cheap tobaccos down his throat since he were a damn boy. But surely not from a meek looking white chap with a (probable) sensitive scalp and a bad track record of luring women in Camden boozers, fuelled by tins of Red Stripe? Either way though, we must accept it, and indeed marvel at it, for it brings with it a peculiarly wry, dramatic British pathos to proceedings.
Then behind the voice (we’d call it The Voice if that pesky Watson chap hadn’t copyrighted the proper noun) there is beautiful contradiction – brimming layers of radiant alt-country sunshine and dry pop cabaret, trundling at a buoyant pace, laced with deliciously converse saccharine vocals from Melinda Bronstein. The slow-fi delicacy of last year’s debut mini-album (one of Crud’s 2005 highlights no less) ‘Donkey Stock’ has been trumped by much more upbeat intentions, more in line with ‘Something To Bang’ – rerecorded here with double helpings of “ooooph” – yet the rounded spirit established in the first instance remains.
It’s the kind of album that sidles up, tickles you a little bit and then buries you in a big old bear-hug, when you were just planning to kick back and contemplate. And it’s a bloody welcome intrusion. ‘More Troubles’ sets the scene perfectly, Dan grumbling that “in my life, I have been known, to bring home more troubles than I’ve solved…” as twinkling guitar, pillow-soft organ and angel on your shoulder harmonies arrange themselves in the background, before being slammed into focus by bold horns and bounding glam drums. “Use your heart, and other body parts,” he adds, underlining the album’s leading theme. ‘Getaway’ is something like Pavement hitting Neil Young with a rusty iron wrench on top of a mildly speeding car, ‘You Try Sober’ is that car heading towards a sunset with something from the Phil Spector stable (Dusty Springfield, perhaps) on the tape deck, and ‘There’s A Body In A Car Somewhere’ is Belle & Sebastian with Stuart Murdoch’s voice having just broken.
What we end up with then is the solemn, mini-orchestral pop of Belle & Sebastian, emphasised with a heart-warming charm not heard since The Delgados disbanded, lead by Lou Reed on downers with a self-depreciating sense of humour. And you don’t need to check a licence for that, their credentials are worn on their sleeve as clear as a promotional neon bar light.