3 out of 5

Label: Happy Couples Never Last

Producer: Brian McTear

Well, this sucks.  Not the album… but making my mind up on Lefty’s Deceiver.  I was pretty intrigued by my first listen of them, their ‘Process Junior EP’, as it was an off-kilter blend of some discordant jams and pop, with Andy Williams’ unbooming voice straining against the noise another odd addition to the mix.  I looked forward to an album.  …And heard the followup ‘Cheats,’ which was wishy-washy to me – good heavy moments, somewhat silly emotional moments.

Now I’m guessing that that’s the overall gist.  ‘Process’ seems like it was cherry-picked – a heavy Lefty’s Deceiver song can be a great thing – punky drums with aggressive noodling on guitar and bass for a non-stop three minute rush.  But slow LD is pretty boring and unremarkable.  Spread this out as a series of ups and downs over forty minutes and it’s a recipe for an average album.  ‘Cheats’ and ‘Conversations’ are almost indistinguishable from each other; odd considering there were some personnel changes and a several year gap.  And thus this also means that ‘Conversations’ is just as wishy-washy, but minus the world-weary themes and subbing in interpersonal musings… which I admittedly prefer.  The lyrics are a selling point for the disc.  Williams has a way of writing about people and relationships that’s neither preachy or too clever or too sappy – they just feel like thoughts.  Honest thoughts.  So I can get down with that.  Alas, the sequencing doesn’t encourage one paying attention for too long, leaving a chunk of long slow songs – ‘Ten For My Friends,’ ‘Deville,’ and ‘September ‘Til First Night’ – after the ripping opener ‘Plans for Doubts’ and toe-tapping followup ‘Wm. Tell.’  ‘Deville’ has a pretty snazzy key swell and folksiness that reminded me of Kingsbury Manx – Williams actually finding another vocal range that works for him – and would’ve been a nice juxtaposition for the faster tracks, but its the only song on the album to make use of that, and buffered by the shruggy ‘Ten’ and the totally tepid ‘September,’ it gets lost.  ‘To Buckle is To Blame’ and ‘Halfway to Havre’ both bring back some momentum, though the latter gets to a certain point and seems to have nowhere to go, so it just gets mashed, aurally, into the last track, ‘Hearts of Urban Daughters,’ which has the distinction of being pretty dismissible.

So while LD was making an identity for itself as a combination of styles, they seemed to forget to perfect any given style.  ‘Conversations’ logically follows from that statement – having some really great moments that it’s hard to rally behind as the other half of the disc blends together.  It’s noteworthy that this doesn’t make it a bad album, but it still seems like the best bet is the EP, which boils the songs down to those more solid moments and then is out before you get bored.