Just over a minute into La Lamentor, the new album from Portland's Weinland, you’d be forgiven for thinking that you've got one more in the vein of angsty troubadours like Damien Rice or Ray LaMontagne; or even from their more upbeat contemporaries like James Morrison or Paolo Nutini. In fact, if you’re a fan of any of these you can probably stop reading here, you're almost guaranteed to become a Weinland fan too (if you're not already), and you're very unlikely to be disappointed by La Lamentor. And whereas the talents of Rice and LaMontagne are anything but ordinary, It's clear from the first word that Weinland have created a special album.
Weinland is the Portland, Oregon band fronted by Adam Shearer (or, according to their bio, John Adam Weinland Shearer), although like Chris Carrabba and Dashboard Confessional, it's sometimes difficult to say where one ends and the other begins. Although their debut album, Demersville, was released under the name John Weinland (they've since dropped the 'John'), they go to great pains to stress that John Weinland is the band, and Adam Shearer is the man.
It's this sort of duplicity that seems to drive the record; it's a little bit country, it's a little bit rock and roll; upbeat melodies with tormented lyrics and quiet poignant songs with a message of hope. It's like Dylan always having been electric or like Neil Young putting out an album of Indie-rock covers. And it's the combined rock and folk sensibilities that make this album work, and which set it apart from the solo guitar and voice works. The traditional guitar/bass/drums arrangement is complemented by accordions, mandolins and Dobro. Decemberists and M. Ward luminary Rachel Blumberg pitches in with understated but essential backing vocals on a number of tracks. How these play together and work with Shearer's Neil Young soundalike vocal chords are what make this record shine.
The comparisons to fellow Portlandians Elliott Smith, the Decemberists and the Shins are unavoidable, and the misery-shared lyrics do nothing to shake this. Although Weinland's sound is their own, the themes of heartbreak are universal, and by now a cornerstone of many Pacific Northwest folk-rock bands. "My eyes are open to a new level of struggle," says Shearer of his songwriting. "The people I've known and our relationships play recurring roles in the stories I tell." Indeed, the songs come from the combined experiences of Shearer's relationships and his own work in the mental health system, where he has worked with emotionally troubled teenagers for the past six years, and are darker than those from 2006's Demersville. "The complications that come along with working in such an emotionally charged environment force you to think," says Shearer in the band's press release. "Sometimes it gives you amazing perspective and sometimes it shuts you off."
It's not all bad news, though. For all the despair and lost love, there's an undercurrent of hope and of healing. Whereas it's not exactly raging party music, nor is it particularly upbeat, it's clear that the message in the songs is that all is not lost – there's a thoughtfulness to the songs that makes you believe that everything's going to be okay.
What Weinland have created, in effect, is an album that belongs everywhere. It's as appropriate to an iPod and speakers in a Manhattan apartment as it is to a jukebox in a quiet suburban bar or an old turntable in a shack in the woods. Like LaMontagne and Rice before them, Weinland echoes a shared experience of hurt and turns it into eleven songs that want you to know – it'll all work out in the end. La Lamentor is available online for download from February and is released on CD by Badman Recording Co. on March 4th. The release will be marked with a show at the Doug Fir Lounge in Portland, Oregon on March 1st.
Labels: Damien Rice, Ray LaMontagne, Weinland
